Calories

Fat and sugar are important ingredients in our products for product structure, eating quality and to shelf-life. Fat is used to create a light and crispy texture in for example pastries. Sugar keeps baked goods soft and moist and ensure that they don't dry out too quickly. It creates tenderness, deepens color and flavor, and adds crunch.

Fat is a calorie dense nutrient. Hard fats have been used in bakery products for centuries. Traditionally these have been animal-based fats, such as suet and butter, but they are today more commonly sourced from tropical seeds such as palm, shea, and coconut. In recent years, the bakery sector has worked hard to achieve reductions in fat, particularly hard fat, both for health reasons, and in the case of palm oil, also for sustainability and ethical reasons. However, fat not only contributes to the eating qualities of biscuits and cakes, it also plays a functional role in dough handling and baking. Since fat has a range of technical qualities, it is important to ensure that these qualities are still met in reduced fat products or in those containing a replacement material.

Sugar has received negative publicity recently because of its impacts on our health. It has taken over from fat and salt as the ingredient that the food industry needs to reduce. Still, sugar is a key ingredient affecting many properties of baked products. When replacing sugar, some of these technical functions must be mimicked to produce a product which is palatable, functional, and appealing. A sugar replacement usually comes at a cost, and more ingredients must be declared on the label.

Reducing food portion sizes has been proposed as a public health strategy to reduce obesity. Several studies have proved that smaller food sizes substantially decrease daily energy intake. Lantmännen Unibake already offer mini- and medium-sizes, and we will continue to accelerate these sizes in our portfolio in close cooperation with our business partners.