Just noticeable difference in sweetness perception of cola: Small changes in sugar are noticeable

Sugar-sweetened beverage consumption contributes to obesity and related diseases. Fortunately, beverages with reduced sweetness are a growing category in the beverage industry. These lower sweetness products could be useful for reducing the total dietary intake of sugar, but publicly available data are sparse on how much sweetness can be reduced without the change becoming noticeable to consumers. We investigated the just noticeable difference (JND) in sweetness of a cola-flavored carbonated beverage. Two sensory tests were conducted to detect the JND from 12.00% w/w sucrose. In each test, we used cola-flavored seltzer water with five decreasing sucrose concentrations (test 1:8.02-12.00% w/w; test 2:10.21-12.00% w/w). In both tests, samples were paired with the 12.00% reference, and participants were instructed to identify the sweeter sample. Participants correctly identified the reference sample at 10.21% in test one (p = .0039) and at 10.89% (p = .014) in test two. The data indicate that in a cola beverage, sucrose can be reduced by ~9.25% of the original concentration (12.00-10.89% w/w) before the sweetness becomes apparent to consumers. However, further work should consider whether sugar reductions greater than 9.25% would be acceptable, even if the difference in sweetness is apparent.

These data could help researchers and industry product developers know how much sugar can be reduced from a cola-flavored beverage before the change is apparent to consumers.