5 ways your sugar supplier helps you to innovate 

The food and beverage industry is a fast-moving environment, where innovation is essential to thrive. When creating standout products, it’s important to also address functionality, efficiency and sustainability across the supply chain. At Ragus, we support our customers’ product innovation through our expertise in sourcing, manufacturing, consulting and delivery, empowering our customers to turn challenges into opportunities for growth. In this blog, we outline five ways your sugar supplier should be helping you drive innovation. 

When it comes to products within the food and beverage industry, sugar specifications are far from a one-size-fits all. All food and beverage product requirements are unique, and sugar plays a critical role in its functional properties, so it delivers the target combination of taste, texture, colour and shelf life. Collaborating with a knowledgeable supplier will help you to tailor your sugar specifications to the application, location, and manufacturing process, in line with your specific needs. 

At Ragus, we consider every aspect of our customers’ sugar supply. From customising sugar specifications to desired outcomes to making logistical considerations, we ensure that our customers receive deliveries in the correct format for their application while also adhering to import and export regulations and customer price points. 

Creating a new food and beverage product? The process of developing a new product is an exciting time for your business but it can be complex. Sugar is not only used for sweetening purposes but also plays a core role in achieving unique textures, flavours and colours that help in making your product stand out in an already competitive market. Your sugar supplier should be able to collaborate with you and advise on the best formulation that aligns with your vision and goals for your new product. 

The Maillard Reaction plays a key role in developing new products in the food and beverage industry through its enhancement of flavour, colour, aroma, texture, appearance and stability. Take pancakes for example, the presence of invert syrup not only adds sweetness to the product, but when toasted, the Maillard reaction comes into play, enhancing the golden hue, releasing flavour and improving the texture and overall appeal. Our team’s expertise helps businesses to develop tailored sugar solutions for applications in baked goods, confectionery and beverages, achieving exceptional results. 

Reformulation is a growing trend within the food and beverage industry as many businesses seek to reevaluate the recipes of their existing products to meet consumer demands for cleaner labels, greater sustainability and improved cost efficiency. Removing ingredients, such as additives that are no longer considered safe by regulators, is a common challenge. Your sugar supplier can help you remove these additives and E-numbers without compromising the original recipe’s taste, colour, texture and mouthfeel. By developing pure sugar ingredients to replace, your supplier can maintain or even enhance the flavour and texture of your product. 

At Ragus, we have helped our customers remove E-numbers while maintaining the overall colouring and taste of their original product and have utilised invert syrups as a cost-effective alternative to honey in cereals preserving the same high-quality taste, in line with modern production needs. 

Beyond providing the ingredients your business needs for production, your supplier should also provide support to plant and production processes. By offering tailored solutions in areas such as specialised packaging options and advanced storage systems, your supplier should be able to significantly reduce waste and improve efficiency in your production processes. 

We are committed to upholding excellent customer service and the expertise of our logistics team ensures that our orders are scheduled meticulously and flexibly in line with our customers unique objectives and delivered in a timely manner. Whether you require bulk deliveries or smaller, more frequent shipments, we select the appropriate delivery systems, such as IBCs or bulk road tankers, and can advise on the most suitable storage systems, such as heated tanks and pump systems, based on your needs, to help optimise you plant operations. 

Sustainability is no longer optional, it has become a core principle of modern food and beverage business operations. The right sugar supplier can help your business achieve its sustainability goals through efficient logistics, sustainable sourcing and waste reducing practices. 

We are supporting our customers to achieve their ESG goals with our sustainable practices. By sourcing raw materials from responsible suppliers who align with global sustainability objectives, we ensure the highest standards of quality and consistency in our products. 

From sourcing, through formulation and reformulation to storage, we offer a holistic approach to our customers through comprehensive solutions that integrate sugar ingredient manufacturing, packaging, storage, delivery, and integration with production processes, minimising waste and reducing environmental impact. The Smart Bag in Box, compared to traditional IBCs, offers our customers a reusable, fully recyclable and space saving solution to strengthen their sustainability standards. 

To discover how Ragus can support your product innovation, contact our Customer Services Team. For more sugar news and updates, continue browsing SUGARTALK and follow Ragus on LinkedIn.