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Short Chain Fos (scFOS): Affordable, natural sugar reduction

BENEO’s short chain fructo-oligosaccharides (scFOS) is a dietary fibre syrup, produced from beet sugar by enzymatic re-arrangement. Thanks to its mild sweet taste and high solubility, scFOS can be applied in a wide variety of applications without compromise on taste and texture. Our European-based production line in Germany is a dedicated facility, making this new ingredient available for all our customers on a global scale.

Nutritional benefits:

Digestive health – Natural source of dietary fibre
Weight management – Calories count – go for less sugar
Blood sugar management – Sugar levels – less is more

ice cream

Ice cream

cereal bars

Applications using scFOS:

Use our ingredient solution finder to explore technical and nutritional benefits across these applications.

Nutritional properties

Using scFOS means replacing sugar while adding dietary fibre. This in turn improves the nutritional profile of a product, allowing manufacturers to achieve a better score for front-of-pack nutrition labelling systems worldwide.

Did you know?
3 grams of scFOS delivers the same amount of fibre as 1 banana

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Dietary fibre: Not digested by human enzymes in the small intestine
Low glycaemic: Not digested in the small intestine and thus no glucose release
Low caloric: Not digested in the small intestine but fermented in the large intestine, providing 2 kcal/g (= half the carbohydrate calories)

Sugar out and fibre in – Nutritionally balanced sugar replacer

With a sweetness level of ±50%, Beneo-scFOS offers a mild sweet taste and only half the calories as sucrose. It has sugar-like technical properties, is well-balanced and without any aftertaste.

Thanks to its sugar-like physical properties, Beneo-scFOS allows for a good fruit flavour release in e.g. fruit preparations and can be used as natural bulk sweetener ingredient: adding both to texture and body of the finished product. With a similar viscosity as sucrose and a high solubility (>80%) this sugar-replacer is easily formulated in all kinds of applications such as bakery, dairy, and cereals; thus, enhancing the nutritional profile.

Baked goods – Humectant properties

Apart from being a natural sugar replacer, Beneo-scL85 can act as humectant: keeping baked goods (e.g. cereal bars) softer and hence securing a longer shelf life. This soluble fibre syrup helps to better control water mobility in the formulation matrix, which ultimately leads to lesser crystallization of starch and softer baked goods.