A Flavorful Combination

American consumers have shown a desire for healthier food choices but an unwillingness to sacrifice flavor. This particularly rings true with indulgent products like ice cream. Consumers can typically tell the difference right away between reduced-sugar and no-sugar-added (NSA) ice creams and their full-sugar counterparts.

However, a new corporate partnership is striving to reverse that fact. David Michael & Co. and SPI Polyols, Inc., New Castle, DE, have joined forces to develop custom-tailored systems—centered on Maltisweet™ IC maltitol syrup from SPI Polyols and vanilla and other flavors from David Michael—that provide the flavor, texture and sweetness of full-sugar ice creams in reduced-sugar or NSA products.

Maltisweet IC can be used as a 1:1 replacement for sucrose and corn syurup, with or without added high-intensity sweeteners. It offers a balanced sweetness and creamy texture without any aftertaste and with fewer calories —3 kcal per gram—than sucrose.

In a recent study conducted by Penn State University, College Station, PA, subjects were unable to find significant differences in overall flavor, texture or appearance between the NSA vanilla ice cream formulated with Maltisweet IC and David Michael’s vanilla flavor and full-sugar vanilla ice cream from Penn State’s University Creamery.

Swapping out ingredients like corn syrup can affect functional aspects of an ice cream. “Unlike other polyols, Maltisweet IC has a freeze-point depression almost identical to that of sucrose and corn syrup,” says Katherine M. Gage, marketing director, SPI Polyols.

“Reducing the amount of sugar in an ice cream affects not only the sweetness perception, but the flavor profile, as well,” says Erica S. Reiner, assistant vice president, strategic business development, David Michael. The company has developed a line of flavors that works with Maltisweet IC to deliver “the same full flavor and sweetness profile of a full-sugar product,” she notes.

At David Michael’s recent Innovation Roadshow®, the company unveiled a natural sweetness-enhancer flavor that, when used with DM Vanilla and Maltisweet IC, shows a synergistic effect in the finished product. The company has developed vanilla flavors in all classifications— natural, N&A, etc.—to fit the criteria for any desired ingredient statement.

At the Roadshow, David Michael and SPI Polyols also showed low-fat NSA butter-almond ice cream with an NSA butter almond brittle inclusion. It also showed a low-fat NSA vanilla ice cream with an NSA raspberry-mango ribbon. Maltisweet IC was used in both the ice creams and inclusions.

Reiner notes that once vanilla has been tackled in a reduced-sugar or NSA ice cream, the field is open to further exploration with other flavors. “Vanilla is the gold standard in ice-cream development,” she says. “You might be able to mask off notes or cover defects with other flavors, but vanilla is the true test of success.” Because vanilla is a core strength of David Michael, the company selected this challenge as the foundation of the new partnership.

David Michael & Co.
10801 Decatur Road 
Philadelphia, PA 19154 
Phone: 215/632-3100 
Fax: 215/637-3920 
E-mail: [email protected] 
Website: www.dmflavors.com