For many, snacking is a normal part of everyday life. Between work, on the go, after sports, or in the evening on the sofa, many people instinctively reach for small snacks or sweets. At the same time, awareness has grown in recent years about how strongly daily sugar consumption is influenced by precisely these small habits. The World Health Organization recommends reducing the intake of free sugars; a strong recommendation is to limit free sugars to less than 10% of total daily energy intake. [1] This recommendation is relevant not because indulgence is fundamentally problematic, but because many everyday diets contain more sugar than most people realize.
This is where the question of what modern snacking can actually look like today becomes interesting. From our perspective, it's not about abstinence or a purely black-and-white understanding of nutrition. Rather, we observe that the understanding of indulgence is changing: many people are no longer looking for "perfect" products, but for options that better fit into a more conscious everyday life. Ideally, a snack should taste good, be practical, and be easy to integrate into the daily routine without much effort. At the same time, many consumers want products that are nutritionally formulated in a more contemporary way than classic sweets.
However, reducing sugar in products is considerably more complex in practice than it sounds at first glance. Sugar is not only sweet but often fulfills several technological functions in food. It affects taste, texture, mouthfeel, and sometimes even the product's stability. Therefore, less sugar is not simply "less," but often involves a fundamental reformulation. This is precisely why the question of alternatives and supplementary recipe ingredients plays such a significant role.
In this context, fiber becomes particularly interesting. EFSA lists fiber as an important component of a balanced diet within the framework of Dietary Reference Values. [2] Fiber is relevant from a nutritional physiological perspective, and at the same time, it can also play an important technological role in modern recipes. This does not mean that a fiber-rich product is automatically healthy or that sugar reduction alone is a mark of quality. But it shows that product development has evolved in recent years: away from the purely classic confectionery logic, towards concepts that are more consciously composed.
From a regulatory perspective, this topic is also clearly defined. Claims such as "sugar-reduced" or "reduced sugars" may not be used arbitrarily in the EU but are linked to defined legal requirements. [3] From our point of view, this is important because such statements are only meaningful if they remain comprehensible and reliable. Especially in the area of conscious nutrition, trust is crucial. Consumers want to be able to assess what an indication actually means and whether a product is truly formulated differently from conventional alternatives.
Our starting point on this issue is therefore not the idea of morally enhancing sweets or making something completely different out of snacks. We are more interested in how familiar snack moments can be adapted to today's needs. Because the reality for most people is not that they completely abstain from snacks. It is much more realistic that people are looking for products that better suit their everyday life, their nutritional awareness, and their personal balance. This is precisely where we see the relevance of products with less sugar and adapted recipes.
From our perspective, conscious snacking therefore does not mean replacing enjoyment, but reclassifying it. It's not about turning every gummy into a functional miracle cure. It's more about re-thinking classic indulgence formats to make them more contemporary. Less sugar is not an end in itself, but part of a broader development: people want to make more informed decisions, without food and snacking losing their ease. [1][3]
[1] World Health Organization (WHO). Guideline: Sugars intake for adults and children. Available at: https://www.who.int/publications/i/item/9789241549028[2] European Food Safety Authority (EFSA). Dietary reference values (DRVs). Available at: https://www.efsa.europa.eu/en/topics/topic/dietary-reference-values[3] European Commission. Nutrition claims. Available at: https://food.ec.europa.eu/food-safety/labelling-and-nutrition/nutrition-and-health-claims/nutrition-claims_en
