Collaboration sweetens the path to low-GI sugar production

The path to industrial-scale production of low GI sugar has been made simpler through a collaboration between Nutrition Innovation Group, the company that developed the manufacturing process, Foss and Schneider Electric.

In the collaboration:

• Nutrition Innovation, which holds the IP, will bring the nutrition science behind healthier sugars and know-how concerning the production of Nucane.
• Foss will supply NIR (near infrared) instruments to support the understanding of the sugar composition required during the manufacture of Nucane.
• Schneider Electric will bring expertise in industrial manufacturing to scale the intricate process, and utilise automation technologies and industrial software. This technology tracks data to ensure the precision required across the whole manufacturing process is efficient, accurate and consistent.
• Sunshine Sugar, a joint partnership between Manildra and sugar growers in NSW that operate in the NSW Sugar Co-operative, is already preparing its Condong food-grade sugar mill for the industrial-scale production of Nucane low-GI sugar.

About Nucane

Nucane is 100% cane sugar and has the same taste and texture as regular white sugar, but a significantly lower GI. The sugar has been certified as low-GI to the World Health Organisation’s standards and can be used in many beverages, fruit juices, canned products, flavoured milks, soy milks, yoghurts, breads, baked goods, ice-cream, confectionery, chocolates and sauces.

Currently most sugar mills are fairly low-tech and produce sugar within a broad specification. In the process developed by Nutrition Innovation real-time production monitoring is used to produce sugar within a very closely defined specification. Nucane is naturally high in antioxidants, low in GI and retains the naturally occurring minerals found in cane sugar such as calcium, magnesium and potassium. Nucane is a dry product so it will flow in food manufacturing processes like white refined sugar. Because it is still 100% sugar but enhanced by a sophisticated milling process, Nucane retains its sugar taste and that important binding ability when used in cooking. These factors are important for replacing sugar in food or beverages.

The Nucane production process can be applied to most sugar mills worldwide where the digitisation of the operations combined with software to analyse production data in real time will enable a new-found production accuracy. Other positive outcomes include less use of power and water, saving costs and reducing waste.

Image credit: ©stock.adobe.com/au/ExQuisine