Foodzie’s great artisan food producers are always looking at the best, most natural and delicious ways food can be made. As we’ve recently updated our guidelines for new foods sold on Foodzie, we’ll take a look in the blog at ways that various producers have switched to more natural and healthy ingredients.
p.o.p. candy recently re-forumulated their nut butter crunch to replace corn syrup with the brown rice syrup. Here they explain their process and results. (As a big fan, especially of the pecan butter crunch, I could barely tell the difference only the new butter crunch has a less “cloying” sweetness — so it’s easier to enjoy more!)
Rachel explains:
Our decision to switch to brown rice syrup (BRS) from high fructose corn syrup (HFCS) needed to be made first about flavor and cooking orientation, then about any health considerations … here’s what we looked at in making the decision (second item first): NUTRITIONALLY/HOW IT METABOLIZES: research indicated that BRS it doesn’t have fructose … it has lower GI sugar.
I remember reading that because of how it breaks down (it’s a complex carb, so breaks down slow and steady), it’s a preferred source of sugar for athletes, which was a positive indicator. We also liked that the product we found was organic and gluten-free. HOW IT TASTES AND RESPONDS DURING THE COOKING PROCESS: Maintaining the integrity of p.o.p.’s flavor with the new product was very important to us and, of course, whatever we were going with had to perform well in the cooking process.
We found agave too sweet; stevia wasn’t going to work in the cooking process; maple syrup added an unwanted flavor…honey also. Both the consistency of the BRS and the fact that it was less sweet than HFCS was right for us. We are really happy with how it has worked flavorwise. And overall, response about the change from our customers has been very positive. They like all three points about the switchover:
(1) that it’s BRS instead of HFCS;
(2) that it’s organic; and
(3) that it’s gluten-free.
