Assessment of artificial and natural sweeteners present in packaged non-alcoholic beverages (NABs) sold on the Singapore market

Abstract

Background New Nutri-Grade labelling, aimed at reducing Singaporeans’ sugar consumption will be implemented for all pre-packaged non-alcoholic beverages (NABs) sold in retail outlets from end 2021 onwards. It is expected such labelling will have a major impact on sugar content of beverages, as well as the replacement of sugar with non-caloric alternatives. Methods This study used product label data obtained from in-store surveys to investigate sugar and sweetener composition of NABs present on the Singapore market. Using this data we calculated products prospective Nutri-Grade classification in order to compare the current market composition with relation to sugar and/or sweetener use. Results Over half of the NABs on market were sweetened with sugar (59%) and were associated with less healthy Nutri-Grades of ‘C’ and ‘D’. The use of natural sweeteners; Stevia and Monk fruit, remains low (6%). Conclusion With continuous efforts by the government in promoting public health nutrition, it is expected that there will be a greater usage of sugar substitutes among NABs in response to the upcoming implementation of Nutri-Grade and ever-fluctuating consumers’ demands. The data collected in this study provide a point estimate (July–September 2020) on market composition and use of both sugar and artificial sweeteners in beverages prior to integration of the mandatory labelling requirements.

Nutritional Description of Foods with Low- and No-Calorie Sweeteners in Spain: The BADALI Project

“…We obtained 9.3% in a sample of 3558 foods, well within the international range and very similar to the 10% obtained in 1164 foods from the ANIBES study [44]. The presence of LNCS in total or non-alcoholic drinks (dairies are usually not included here) vary between 10% in Hong-Kong to 41.1% in Colombia, with 72-83% in Chile and less than 1% in Australia [5,[13][14][15]17,38,47,49,50,53,55,56,58]. Our re-sults are similar to those obtained in Brazil [38].…”

“…Among intense sweeteners, sucralose and acesulfame K are generally the most frequently used, also in Spain and in our work [5,[13][14][15]17,38,[44][45][46]52,53,55,56]. In fact, they are the most consumed LNCS among the Spanish population [4].…”

“…Studies on the prevalence of LNCS in foods and drinks in several countries, including Spain, have been published in recent years [4,5,[13][14][15]17,38,[44][45][46][47][48][49][50][51][52][53][54][55][56][57][58][59]. Despite differences, some general conclusions may be drawn, most of them shared by our own results.…”

“…Aspartame is also one of the most used in some countries such as Italy, Argentina and Peru [23,24]. Among polyols, sorbitol is the most frequent, whereas the use of maltitol is also significant [4,5,13,38,46,48,52,53,56]. In our database, maltitol was the main polyol used, as well as in the 2019 publication from Spain [45].…”

Correction to: Assessment of artificial and natural sweeteners present in packaged non-alcoholic beverages (NABs) sold on the Singapore market

“…In the original publication [ 1 ] there was an incorrect funding acknowledgement. In this correction article the correct and incorrect funding acknowledgement are published.…”