The fourth generationof sugar reduction.
Sweeteners copy sugar's taste. Polyols copy its bulk. D-allulose is a sugar by chemistry, so it does sucrose's jobs in the recipe: bulk, browning, moisture and freeze control. It carries 0.4 kcal/g, against 4.0 for sucrose.
Free for licensed FBOs. A starting formula comes with it. Download the spec sheet (PDF)
The four generations
| What it does | Syntheticsucralose | Polyolsmaltitol | Plant extractsstevia | Rare sugarallulose |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Sweetness at dose | Flattens | Mild | Flattens | Clean, ~70% |
| Bulk and structure | None | Full | None | Full |
| Browning in a bake | None | None | None | Yes |
| Finish | Lingers | Often cooling | Bitter linger | Clean |
Source: energy, US FDA final guidance on allulose, 2020. Sweetness, Lee et al., Molecules, 2020. Freezing point, sucrose 342 g/mol ÷ allulose 180 g/mol.
The word sugar is not on most labels.These are.
- Sucroseis sugar.
- Dextroseis sugar.
- Maltoseis sugar.
- Fructoseis sugar.
- Glucose syrupis sugar.
- Invert sugar syrupis sugar.
- Fruit juice concentrateis sugar.
- Barley malt extractis sugar.
- Rice syrupis sugar.
- Agave nectaris sugar.
- Date syrupis sugar.
- Honeyis sugar.
- Sucroseis sugar.
- Dextroseis sugar.
- Maltoseis sugar.
- Fructoseis sugar.
- Glucose syrupis sugar.
- Invert sugar syrupis sugar.
- Fruit juice concentrateis sugar.
- Barley malt extractis sugar.
- Rice syrupis sugar.
- Agave nectaris sugar.
- Date syrupis sugar.
- Honeyis sugar.
- Sucroseis sugar.
- Dextroseis sugar.
- Maltoseis sugar.
- Fructoseis sugar.
- Glucose syrupis sugar.
- Invert sugar syrupis sugar.
- Fruit juice concentrateis sugar.
- Barley malt extractis sugar.
- Rice syrupis sugar.
- Agave nectaris sugar.
- Date syrupis sugar.
- Honeyis sugar.
Sucrose, dextrose, maltose, fructose, glucose syrup, invert sugar syrup, fruit juice concentrate, barley malt extract, rice syrup, agave nectar, date syrup and honey are all sugar.
So sugar is a family, not one substance. Its members range from a glycaemic index of 100 down to practically zero. Allulose sits at the bottom.
So the question on your bench is not sugar or no sugar. It is which sugar, and how much. Allulose is the member that keeps sucrose's jobs in the recipe and drops 90% of its energy.
Free for licensed FBOs. A starting formula comes with it.
Same family. Very different load.
Most sugar-free products swap sucrose for maltitol or maltodextrin. Neither counts as a sugar on the label, and both still raise blood glucose. So a pack can read sugar-free and still carry a glycaemic load. Allulose runs the other way: chemistry counts it as a sugar, yet it carries 0.4 kcal/g.
Codex Guidelines on Nutrition Labelling, CAC/GL 2-1985. GI: Atkinson et al., Diabetes Care, 2008. Maltodextrin: Wang et al., Medicine, 2018 measured 75.9 with a 31% cut from mulberry extract, so 75.9 ÷ 0.69 = 110 without it (one study, 15 adults). Bars on a 0 to 120 scale. Allulose is a monosaccharide, so chemistry counts it as a sugar. How it is declared in the nutrition panel is a separate question for your regulatory adviser.
A maltodextrin swap can clear the red label and still raise the glucose load.
Sucrose scores 65. Maltodextrin scored about 110. Both carry 4 kcal/g. Health groups in the FOPL debate ask for a test of glycaemic impact for this reason.
In 20 adults, 7.5 g of allulose alone did not raise blood glucose.
Taken with 75 g of maltodextrin, 5 g or more of allulose cut the glucose rise. The effect grew with dose.
Iida et al., J Nutr Sci Vitaminol, 2008. Industry-funded randomised trial.
Sweetness is one job. Sugar does four more.
In a drink, sugar mostly sweetens, so stevia or sucralose can stand in. In a bake, a scoop or a burfi, sugar also builds structure, holds water, browns and controls ice. High-intensity sweeteners do none of these.
Structure
Sugar delays starch gelatinisation and protein setting. Without it, batters set early and the bake comes out dense and tough. High-potency sweeteners leave no solids behind.
The batter keeps its bulk, so the recipe needs no filler.
The day-21 problem
Sugar holds water. Take it out and water activity rises. The product passes day one, then turns dry, firm or mouldy on the shelf.
It keeps water activity in check, so the crumb stays soft.
Browning and aroma
Most high-intensity sweeteners and polyols are non-reducing. They cannot join the Maillard reaction, so bakes come out pale.
Colour comes on faster than with sucrose. Lower the oven temperature and check early.
Freeze control
In frozen desserts, sugar lowers the freezing point. Remove it and the scoop turns rock-hard, with large ice crystals.
Its smaller molecule keeps ice cream scoopable straight from the freezer.
Each trial held quality with a quarter or more of the sugar replaced.
Sponge cake
Liking equal to the sucrose control at 25%. Volume fell and hardness rose above that.
Bread
Loaf height, volume, colour and hardness held through 75%. At 100% the loaf lost the preference test.
Cakes
The 50% cake scored highest for day-one acceptability (7.9). The 100% cake scored lowest by day 8 (6.7).
Wheat cookies
Visual acceptance held to about 25%. Browning rose with dose.
Yeast cannot ferment allulose, so 100% allulose bread needs a longer proof.
A high-intensity sweetener covers the missing 30% of sweetness.
Bars show the share of sugar weight replaced, on a 0 to 100% scale.
Pick your product. Start from a formula.
Each card gives a starting level, what allulose does in that product, and what to watch on the line.
Starting points from Hexicose application guidance (supplier data). Confirm on your own line before you scale.
Take the sucrose out. The food becomes the energy.
Swap sucrose for allulose and the main ingredient carries more of the energy on the label. Pick a product to see the shift.
Supplier calculation on illustrative recipes. Sugars at 4.0 kcal/g, allulose at 0.4 kcal/g, all else unchanged. Food energy per 100 g: cashew 553, unsweetened chocolate 642, tomato paste 82 kcal (USDA FoodData Central); toned milk 58 kcal (Indian pack labels). Ice-cream dairy: 10 g milk fat and 11 g milk solids, 128 kcal. Yoghurt worked from the 150 g pot: milk gives 90 of 150 kcal before and 90 of 96 kcal after.
Cut a quarter of the sucrose. Then check the claim.
A "Reduced sugar" claim needs at least 25% less sugar than the reference food, under the FSS (Advertising and Claims) Regulations, 2018. Allulose is a sugar by chemistry. Whether it sits inside declared total sugars is a nutrition-labelling question, so confirm it with your regulatory adviser before you print. And count all the carbohydrate: a sugar cut that adds starch or maltodextrin back does not lower the glycaemic load.
*This product contains g total sugar per 100 g compared to g total sugar per 100 g in our standard formulation, a 25% reduction in total sugar content.
A 60 kg adult reaches the 24 g single-dose level (0.4 g/kg) after g of this product. Working: 24 ÷ × 100. A full swap would cut that to g.
Sugar*
Other wording: "25% Less Sugar than Regular Formulation*". "Lower in Sugar, formulated with 25% reduced sugar*".
- Claim words match a permitted phrase.
- The label names the reference food.
- The label states the cut in grams.
- Energy per serve is on the panel.
- D-allulose is in the ingredient list.
Based on the FSS (Advertising and Claims) Regulations, 2018. The sugar-after figure assumes allulose sits outside declared total sugars. Check how allulose is declared on your label first. Any claim on your product is your own. Tolerance: Han et al., Nutrients, 2018. Energy: 4.0 − 0.4 = 3.6 kcal saved per gram.
New front-of-pack rules are coming.
sugar
Proposed red hexagon, FSSAI draft. Illustration only.
Moneylife, 28 Sep 2026.
A new recipe must clear the plant trial, a shelf-life run and new artwork. Start the bench work this quarter.
Supreme Court hearings reported by LawBeat (13 Aug 2026) and Omnicuris (28 Sep 2026). Launch data: ChemBizR, in FoodBev Media, 7 Aug 2025.
Why Sucroless? Ask an AI.
Check it for yourself. Put the question to ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini or Grok. One click loads it and the answer opens in your own AI tool.
The answer comes from the AI tool, not from Hexicose.
FSSAI publishes its non-specified food approvals and updates the list every month.
Open the latest listSource: fssai.gov.in, Standards · Non-specified food.
Sucrose's physical chemistry,at a tenth of the energy.
Sugar does more than sweeten. It browns, controls ice, dissolves without a chill and holds moisture. D-allulose does all four. Its sweetness lands at about 70% of sucrose, so most recipes blend.
Source: freezing point, sucrose 342 g/mol ÷ allulose 180 g/mol, by colligative ratio. Heat of solution: supplier figure.
Sixteen sweeteners, tasted against sucrose.
A 40-person panel rated the sweetness of 16 sweeteners at six levels each. The study measured how sweet each one gets, how fast its sweetness rises with dose, and how many calories it costs to match sucrose.
Half the sucrose out cuts the sweetener's energy by 45%. Maltitol and xylitol were the other two closest matches.
Table 4: potency 0.99, 0.93 and 1.05 at 5, 10 and 15%. Energy: (4.0 + 0.4) ÷ 2 = 2.2 kcal/g.
It took 13.3 g per 100 mL, against 40 kcal for sucrose. Most polyols sit between them.
13.3 g × 0.4 kcal/g. Energy: US FDA guidance, 2020.
Relative sweetness rose with level. Plan a top-up or a blend when replacing sucrose fully.
Table 4, across three levels.
Sweetness potency
How sweet a sweetener tastes against the same weight of sucrose. 1.0 is a match.
- Sucrose
- 1.00
- Allulose, at 10%
- 0.75
- Stevia, sucralose
- Far higher, falls with dose
Table 4.
Growth rate
How fast sweetness rises as the dose goes up. A sucrose-like curve keeps a recipe predictable.
- Sucrose
- 1.31
- Allulose
- 1.41
- Other bulk sweeteners
- 1.08–1.46
- High-potency sweeteners
- 0.65–0.84
Table 3.
Wee M, Tan V, Forde CG. A Comparison of Psychophysical Dose-Response Behaviour across 16 Sweeteners. Nutrients 2018; 10(11): 1632.
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