Strawberry ripple sauce: A semi-solid fibre syrup to reduce sugar content

A consumer-recognized fibre syrup was used as bulking agent in a sugar reduction reformulation strategy of a strawberry ripple sauce, in order to satisfy the consumer needs of healthier and clean label products. Three sugar reduced recipes of ripple sauces (by 30 %, 50 % and 70 %) were developed and characterized together with a full sugar counterpart. The technological functionality of the fibre syrup was tested analysing the ripple sauces during 60 days of storage at two temperatures (5 °C and 25 °C) considering their physicochemical, stability, rheological and sensorial features. The use of the fibre syrup increased the water activity and the moisture content of the reformulated ripples; however, no water syneresis occurred during storage in these samples. The consumer acceptability of ripples in which sugar was reduced by 30 % furthermore confirm the possibility to use the fibre syrup as sugar substitute in high sugar products. The industrial scalability was confirmed for the ripple sauce in which sugar was reduced by 30 % as it resulted similar at rheological and sensory level to the full sugar counterpart also during storage.