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. See the four generations
Free for licensed FBOs. A starting formula comes with it. Download the spec sheet (PDF)
Which sugar replacers are there, and what does each do?
A century of partial answers. Synthetic sweeteners, from saccharin to sucralose, and stevia cover 2 of the 8 jobs sugar does in a recipe: sweetness and calorie reduction. Polyols such as erythritol and maltitol cover 6. Allulose, a rare sugar, covers 7, five of them fully, because it is itself a sugar.
| 1 · Synthetic | 2 · Polyols | 3 · Plant extract | 4 · Rare sugar | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Job · first use | 1879Saccharin | 1937Cyclamate | 1965Aspartame | 1976Sucralose | 1990sErythritol | 1990sMaltitol | 2008Stevia | 2012Allulose |
| Sweetness | ||||||||
| BulkSolids, 1:1 by weight | ||||||||
| BrowningMaillard and caramel | ||||||||
| Water bindingSoftness, shelf life | ||||||||
| Freezing pointScoop from the freezer | ||||||||
| StructureCrystal set | ||||||||
| Yeast foodProofing | ||||||||
| Caloric reduction | ||||||||
| Jobs covered | 2/8 | 2/8 | 2/8 | 2/8 | 6/8 | 6/8 | 2/8 | 7/8 |
Saccharin, cyclamate and aspartame score the same as sucralose. Widen the screen to see all eight.
Each was tasted by a chemist who did not mean to. Sweetness without calories, and nothing else.
With it came cooling notes, digestive limits and pale bakes.
Still sweetness only, often with a bitter linger. It needs a bulking partner.
Kagawa University found the enzyme that turns fructose into allulose. It is a sugar, so it does sugar's jobs.
Years: discovery for the synthetic sweeteners, first wide commercial use for the polyols, first US GRAS clearance for stevia and allulose. Scoring is a Hexicose assessment of published functional properties. Caloric reduction uses US labelling values: sucrose 4.0 kcal/g, maltitol about half, allulose 0.4, erythritol about 0.2, high-intensity sweeteners negligible at use level.
What counts as sugar on a food label?More than the word sugar.
Sugar is a family, not one substance. Sucrose, dextrose, maltose, fructose, glucose syrup, invert syrup, fruit juice concentrate, malt extract, rice syrup, agave, date syrup and honey are all sugars. 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.
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.
Does allulose brown and caramelise like sugar?
Yes, and sooner. It browns where polyols stay pale. Crust colour and baked aroma come from Maillard browning and caramelisation. Both need a reducing sugar. Maltitol and erythritol are sugar alcohols, so they sit out. Allulose is a reducing sugar, and a fast one.
It is not a reducing sugar. It must first split into glucose and fructose before it joins the reaction.
A reducing ketose. Its open-chain form reacts with the proteins in milk, flour and egg straight away.
Sugar alcohols have no reducing group, so they cannot take part in Maillard browning.
In a model test against glucose and fructose, allulose was used up fastest in the browning reaction.
Ertuğrul et al., Int J Food Sci Technol 56, 5334 (2021).
Wire-cut cookies made with allulose came out darker, with less spread and a softer bite.
Woodbury and Mauer, Food Res Int 192, 114844 (2024).
Sponge cake lost 10.8% of its allulose in baking, so about 89% stayed in the product.
Oshima et al., Food Sci Technol Res 20, 415 (2014).
Drop the oven 10 to 15 °C on the first trial and check colour early. Peda and biscuits that went pale on a polyol get their colour back.
Hexicose application guidance.
Reducing sugars can raise acrylamide in low-moisture bakes. Fructose gives more than sucrose. Measure it on the trial batch, as you would for any sugar change.
Schouten et al., Food Reviews International 39, 4793 (2023), review.
How do I start using allulose in my product?
Start from your category. Ice cream and kulfi: 5 to 10% of mix weight. Cakes: gram for gram, oven 10 to 15 °C lower. Bread: keep 5 to 10% of the sugar as sucrose for the yeast. Mithai: fold in off the heat. Chocolate: replace up to 25% of sugars first. Jams: hold total soluble solids. Drinks: 3.5%. Pick a card for detail.
Starting points from Hexicose application guidance (supplier data). Confirm on your own line before you scale.
How much energy does allulose take out of a recipe?
3.6 kcal for every gram of sucrose replaced (4.0 − 0.4). In 55% dark chocolate, swapping 45 g of sucrose takes out 162 kcal per 100 g, and cocoa rises from 66% to 95% of the energy. The food becomes the energy. 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.
When will sugar warnings go on Indian packs?
Soon, but the date is not fixed. FSSAI favours a single red-hexagon warning for any nutrient that is high. Its September 2026 proposal sought a 1 July start, with at least 365 days to comply after notification. The Supreme Court reserved judgment on the timeline on 28 September 2026.
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. Proposed timeline: Outlook India, 23 Sep 2026.
What are the key facts about Sucroless™ D-allulose?
Sucroless™ is the D-allulose brand of Hexicose Foods, the importer and FSSAI approval holder. It is a crystalline rare sugar at 98.5% purity or better, about 70% as sweet as sucrose, with a US labelling value of 0.4 kcal/g against 4.0 for sucrose. It is supplied in 25 kg bags to licensed food businesses in India.
- Product
- D-allulose (D-psicose), crystalline powder
- Brand · supplier
- Sucroless™ · Hexicose Foods OPC Pvt Ltd, Mumbai
- FSSAI approval
- Novel food, Ref 43/Std/PA/FSSAI/2025Dated 24 December 2025
- Other approvals
- US GRAS (GRN 400, 2012) · FSANZ (A1247, 2024) · China NHC (No. 4, 2025) · Japan · South KoreaNot yet authorised in the EU or UK
- Purity
- ≥ 98.5% D-allulose, dry basis
- Energy
- 0.4 kcal/g, US labelling valueSucrose 4.0 kcal/g. India has no allulose-specific factor yet.
- Sweetness
- About 70% of sucroseRising towards 80% at higher levels
- Freezing-point effect
- 1.9 times sucrose, per gram342.30 ÷ 180.16 g/mol
- Browning
- Reducing sugar; browns faster than sucrose
- Solubility
- 291 g per 100 g water at 25 °CFukada et al., 2010
- Identity
- C6H12O6 · 180.16 g/mol · CAS 551-68-8 · HSN 29400000
- Pack · shelf life
- 25 kg food-grade bags · 36 months sealedCoA with every lot
Supplied to licensed food business operators only. Hexicose Foods makes no health or therapeutic claim for D-allulose.
Download the spec sheet (PDF)How do I make a reduced-sugar claim in India?
Cut sugar by at least 25% against the reference food. That is the rule under the FSS (Advertising and Claims) Regulations, 2018. With 20 g of sugar per 100 g, swap 5 g for allulose: sugar falls to 15 g and energy by 18 kcal. Allulose is a sugar by chemistry, so confirm how it is declared with your regulatory adviser before you print. Count all the carbohydrate too: a 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.
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.
How sweet is allulose compared with sugar?
About 70% as sweet as sucrose, rising towards 80% at higher levels. 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.
Terms & Conditions
Standard B2B conditions
Our standard business-to-business terms cover payment, delivery, liability, and returns. Please read them before placing your first order.
Download conditions (PDF)For licensed food business operators only.



