At this year’s Gulfood Manufacturing Industry Excellence Awards, Archer Daniels Midland Company (ADM) has been awarded “most innovative food ingredient” for its natural sweetening solution Fruit Up Fiber. The awards recognize best practices and innovation within the food manufacturing industry value chain.

Entries were judged on the additional value the innovations brought to developers, as well as their ability to meet unmet market needs. Growing regulatory pressure, media scrutiny and changing consumer tastes have led many food and beverage developers to focus on reformulation options to reduce the amount of sugar in their products. As a result, reduced sugar alternatives are growing in popularity and becoming a necessity for many companies. Meanwhile, consumers continue to look for clean label products that look, smell and taste great.

Fruit Up Fiber is a source of soluble fiber that provides sweetness with 30 % less sugar on a dry basis relative to nutritive sweeteners, such as sucrose or glucose. Based on naturally occurring carbohydrates (sugars, sweetening ingredients, polyols and soluble fibers), the new product can provide developers with a lower sugar, clean label solution for a wide range of food and beverage applications. It has a glycemic index of 40 and is also non-GMO certified.