In This Issue:

Increase profits and foot traffic with mini desserts

Small indulgences never go out 
of fashion...

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Putting a Finger on the #1 Cause of Foodborne Illness

Food handled by infected employees is the most common contributing factor...

> read full story

Sweeten Your Bottom Line While Satisfying Consumers Desire to Indulge

Finding Creative ways to indulge your customers...

> read full story

A Rainbow of
Sweetener Choices

A successful foodservice operation is all about details…making sure that even the smallest element is "just right" sets you apart from the competition.

Whether it’s adding the perfect garnish, ensuring the flowers on the table are fresh or creating the right ambience, getting the details right is what keeps customers coming back for more.

But there’s one detail you might have overlooked: the selection of sweeteners that you offer to your customers. If you’re offering just one or two choices, you’ve overlooked a very important detail! Consumers want choice, and they’re loyal to the taste of their favorite products – particularly those they use at home. If your patrons don’t see their preferred sweetener on your table, you’re surely going to miss out on beverage sales.

So, are you offering the "rainbow" of sweeteners? Alongside traditional granulated sugar, your customers expect to see a full array of colors in the caddy. Each one represents a distinct taste profile and boasts a loyal following:

Pink. For more than 50 years, the original no-calorie, saccharine-based sweetener, Sweet ’N Low®, has been a fixture on America’s tables. Trusted and economical, it’s a "must-have" sweetener option with an extremely loyal customer base. Other pink sweetener options include Sysco’s Sweet Plus®.

Brown. Customers who want authentic, natural flavor go for turbinado sugar with its large, golden-colored crystals and distinctively rich molasses flavor. For top quality, try Sugar In The Raw®, sourced exclusively from Maui, Hawaii or Sysco’s NATURAL raw sugar packet.

Blue. Aspartame delivers a taste similar to sugar, but with no calories, sucrose or sodium. Sysco has several brands of "blue" to choose from, including INDULGE®, a high quality alternative to the national brand, EQUAL.

Yellow. One of the newest additions to the sweetener category, sucralose-based sweeteners are perfect for hot or cold beverages and add no calories to the drink. Some examples of sucralose based sweetener brands available today include SPLENDA and Sysco’s exclusive product SHAPE.

 

And introducing…

Green. You’ve probably heard talk lately about sweeteners derived from the stevia plant. While stevia may be new to the U.S., South Americans have used it as a sweetening agent for centuries. The leafy green foliage of the stevia plant produces a compound called Reb A, which can then be extracted to make sweeteners that are 100% natural, with no calories.

But why include it in your sweetener offering? A one-gram packet of a stevia-based sweetener has the same sweetening power as two teaspoons of sugar, which makes it perfect for use in coffee, tea and on cereal. It contains no artificial colors, flavors or preservatives – great selling points for today’s health-conscious consumers. It also has less than one gram of carbohydrate per serving, so it’s suitable for low-carb diets.

Stevia-based sweeteners are derived from natural sources and Reb A, the sweetening agent in stevia, has been proven safe by more than 85 studies. Additionally, sales of organic and natural products are expected to grow at a 15% to 20% compounded average annual growth rate from 2007 to 2010, according to the Organic Trade Association and the USDA,¹ making stevia the perfect sweetener option to offer to your customers.

Success lies in the details and as more and more consumers find out about the sweet, natural taste of stevia and make it a part of their daily diets, they’re going to expect to see it included within the rainbow of sweeteners on your table when dining out. Satisfy your customers and make sure you’ve covered every detail: make sure you offer your customers their sweetener of choice.

Watch out for more information coming soon about Stevia Extract In The Raw™, an exciting new stevia-based sweetener from the marketers of Sugar In The Raw®! 1

¹      www.technomic.securelook.com.

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