Consumer acceptability of sugar-reduced bran-rich biscuits

Biscuits are a popular category of cereal-based food with a relatively high energy density. Biscuits main component usually are wheat, sucrose and fat. Despite the lack of a general consensus from the scientific community, consumers opinion and influential diet guidelines indicate that reducing food sugar content might be beneficial to public health. Products rich in fibres and containing sweeteners with reduced caloric load might represent the right balance among nutritional value and acceptability. The present work compares the acceptability of four biscuits with high content of roasted wheat bran (14%), baked with brown cane sugar; maltitol; maltitol and stevia; brown cane sugar and stevia. The relative amount of the different sweeteners has been computed based on relative sweetness value (Edwards et al., 2016) with little modifications. Young consumers (n = 425; 48% male, 52% female; average age 23 years) rated the products for acceptability of appearance, friability, sweetness, salty and bitter taste using a 10-point hedonic scale. Biscuits were further assessed by SEM image and texture analyses in order to compare these results with those of the consumer test. For overall acceptability, biscuits with brown cane sugar were significantly more liked than their reformulated counterpart; the biscuits containing stevia and maltitol and only maltitol where not significantly different whereas the product with lowest caloric content, stevia and maltitol, scored the lowest appreciation. Variance in the overall acceptability was predominantly driven by sweet taste and friability. No major changes were found on overall acceptability based on consumer habits. Differences in the product texture were evidenced in the texture and image analyses. In conclusion the product better conjugating overall acceptability and reduced sucrose consumption was the biscuit containing maltitol as sweetener.