Givaudan, Sweet Victory develop innovative gum to naturally block sugar cravings in Kids
Ramat Yishai, Israel – FoodTech start-up Sweet Victory, Ltd., collaborated with Givaudan, SA to create a flavourful botanical-infused chewing gum for children. The prototype gum is designed to stop sugary treat cravings in their tracks. Sweet Victory already designed the innovative gum for adults but gum for kids set more challenges, and Givaudan helped the start-up to create a supplement that fits kids’ taste buds.
Sweet Victory crave-stifling chewing gum works within two minutes by blocking the sugar receptors on the tongue. The effect can last up to two hours, and during that time sweet foods or beverages that normally excite the senses will taste bland or even sour. The impulse for a sweets binge can be abated, lasting even longer than the physical effect—up to two hours. Sweet Victory gum was designed to help consumers to reduce sugar intake in an easy and fun way. The product for kids is still in the prototype stage, but the company expects to launch it by the end of 2022.
The findings of a new study were presented at this year’s European Congress on Obesity in Maastricht, Netherlands. It included 2,336 children from the UK, making it the largest dietary dataset of young children. Parents were asked to complete three-day eating diaries for their children when they were toddlers (21 months old) and again when they were seven years old. The study, reported in the May 1, 2022 issue of The Telegraph revealed at least 80% of seven year olds exceeded the recommended limit of 10% of daily calories from free sugars.
Development of a children’s version of the product turned out to be a massive process. The senior manager of product development at Givaudan and Sweet Victory’s development team took months to create a totally new product with a child-safe, tailored dosage of the active ingredient, Gymenma sylvestre. This traditional herb has been used for more than 2,000 years in Ayurvedic medicine. Receiving a modern twist in this new gum, the new product boasts a tutti-frutti flavour—ranked one of the three top favourite sweet flavours among children worldwide. The collaboration’s cutting-edge technology enabled creation of a functional, sugar-free chewing gum that kids love to chew.
The start-up already conducted trials with children to estimate the impact of this innovative gum on kids in Israel, US and France. The results demonstrated that children enjoyed the gum but could not eat confectionery after chewing it due to the change in their receptors.
“The biggest challenge in developing this gum for kids was to create boldly fruit-flavoured chewing gum to overcome the bitterness of the herb gymnema,” explains Shimrit Lev, co-founder of Sweet Victory. “In the gum designed for adults we used strong mint, but in the kid’s product we had to come up with other solutions.”
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