Written by: Samantha Ruge | Common Threads Marketing Intern
While Common Threads’ food philosophy prioritizes fresh ingredients and simple recipes, we also have the privilege of partnering with companies who are on the vanguard of food science technology. Companies like DouxMatok and Griffith Foods acknowledge our contemporary appetite for sugar and salt and aim to work around them — developing technologies that help people maintain a healthy diet while staying excited about the options we have available to us.
Incredo Sugar by DouxMatok is a sugar reduction solution that delivers the same sweetness and taste as regular sugar, but with up to a 50 percent decrease in the actual amount of sugar used. Incredo Sugar works by embedding tiny amounts of a mineral carrier into real cane sugar, tricking our taste buds into perceiving more sweetness. The ambition is to decrease excess sugar consumption, which has been proven to lead to high blood pressure, diabetes and liver disease. With the recent launch of Incredo Sugar in the U.S., the DouxMatok team is working with sweet snack manufacturers, food service providers, fresh bakeries, chefs, and chocolatiers to incorporate Incredo Sugar into their products. Consumers can expect to see the first Incredo Sugar sweetened products available in the coming year – starting with the limited run of their own Incredo Spreads.
Griffith Foods is another company that emphasizes food safety, sustainability, and health. Founded in 1919, Griffith Foods creates seasonings, sauces, and ingredient blends for foodservice professionals, processors, distributors, and retailers. Aware of the health impact of excess sodium, their “Sodium Flex” initiative aims to reduce sodium levels up to 25 percent across many products while maintaining taste and texture. Griffith is able to reduce sodium with customized blends of sea salts, potassium salts, salt microspheres, and flavor enhancers that allow for targeted sodium reduction without sacrificing taste. This platform was developed in response to the nearly 400,000 deaths related to high blood pressure. Many of these deaths are due to the modern consumers’ increased sodium intake due to the increase in processed food consumption.
Both companies have also made a commitment to sustainability. Because adoption of Incredo Sugar encourages use of significantly less volume of sugar, the environmental impact of the sugar’s production will be lower over time compared to other sugar products. In addition, Incredo Sugar’s production processes use green chemistry with no new molecules, acids, or other hazardous materials.
Griffith Foods uses a unique sourcing program they call Griffith Sustainably Sourced (GSS) that helps farmers integrate sustainability and gives consumers the transparency they desire. Griffith Foods also sources many of its raw materials from Rainforest Alliance Certified™ farms that produce ingredients using methods that support the three pillars of sustainability: social, economic, and environmental.
Hippocrates once said, “Let food be thy medicine and medicine be thy food,” a sentiment that Common Threads shares with many of our partners. We are proud to collaborate with companies working to promote healthy diets without limiting the options we have available to us.
—
Samantha Ruge is a Marketing Intern at Common Threads. She is a student at California Polytechnic State University studying Agricultural Communications and Food Science. She plans to pursue a career in Marketing and Communications post graduation.
ABOUT COMMON THREADS
Common Threads is a national nonprofit that provides children and families cooking and nutrition education to encourage healthy habits that contribute to wellness. We equip under-resourced communities with information to make affordable, nutritious and appealing food choices wherever they live, work, learn, and play. We know that food is rooted in culture and tradition so we promote diversity in our lessons and recipes, encouraging our participants to celebrate the world around them.
