Alexa Bosshardt MPS, RDN

Alexa Bosshardt, MPS, RDN, is a research chef and hands-on industry consultant who has devoted most of her career to providing recipe formulation and nutritional marketing services to food and beverage manufacturers and restaurant chains. With a culinary degree from Johnson & Wales, and multiple degrees from Cornell University, Bosshardt has enjoyed more than three decades of teaching ServSafe and Culinary Nutrition courses, as well as corporate wellness classes. She currently consults for a number of food companies. Read more of her articles on the sweet things in life at www.preparedfoods.com. She can be reached at alexa@fitculinary.com.

A Brief Review of Sweetener Options Varieties

Among the nutritive sweetener, trending sources include syrups from maple, sorghum, corn, and malted grains

Alexa Bosshardt MPS, RDN

May 5, 2021

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The rapidly expanding array of sweetener options merits a look at the best uses, applications, and formats whether considering them solely for flavor and performance or with an eye on reduction of nutritive sugars. Among the nutritive sweetener, trending sources include syrups from maple, sorghum, corn, and malted grains.

Low and Sweet: Sugar Reduction is Keeping it Real

With consumers continuing to pursue more healthy alternatives to indulgences, counting calories from sugar has taken off

Alexa Bosshardt MPS, RDN

February 12, 2021

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Consumers' continued pursuit of more healthy alternatives to their favorite indulgences has led to a rise in the use of natural high-intensity sweeteners, ultra-low-calorie 1:1 drop-in sweeteners, and natural sweetness enhancers.

2021 Predictions: SWEETENERS

Sweeter Times Coming

The search for sweetness is only natural.

Alexa Bosshardt MPS, RDN

November 30, 2020

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Consumer commitment to reduce sugar consumption continues to drive industry opportunities to develop non-nutritive sweeteners that perform and taste like table sugar. Blending nutritive sweeteners with high-intensity sweeteners (HIS) has become the standard, with stevia being the common go-to, typically in blends with everything from corn-derived sucrose or dextrose to maltose or tapioca sugar, or recent arrivals like coconut sugar.

Sweetener Blends Continue to Expand and Become More Nuanced

The Sweet Life: What does the sweetener landscape look like as we enter the third decade of the 21st century?

Alexa Bosshardt MPS, RDN

May 13, 2020

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The 2019 International Food Information Council (IFIC) Food and Health Survey reported that limiting or reducing sugar in the diet, along with eating more fruits and vegetables, topped the dietary changes consumers were making.

2020 PREDICTIONS: SWEETENERS

Trends in Sweeteners

The ongoing trend for sweet success continues

Alexa Bosshardt MPS, RDN

December 12, 2019

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Breakthroughs in ingredient technology have produced a number of new sweetener systems and custom proprietary blends.

New Approaches to Diabetes

Addressing the needs of the millions of people with blood sugar disorders.

Alexa Bosshardt MPS, RDN

August 27, 2019

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According to the Centers for Disease Control, more than 30 million Americans — nearly 10% of the entire population — are living with diabetes, and perhaps as many as 85 million more are living with prediabetes.

The Sweet Life

Satisfy that craving for something sweet

Alexa Bosshardt MPS, RDN

May 29, 2019

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The drive to satisfy the sweet tooth of the American consumer seems to become more complicated and confusing every year. The realities of the obesity epidemic create a divide that nearly every consumer confronts on a daily basis.

Eli's Cheesecake Honey-Sweetened Florentine Honey Almond Bar

2019 Predictions: Sweeteners

Natural, Non-GMO, and Organic Sweeteners Keep Trending Up

Annual sales for alternative sweeteners are projected to hit $1.6 billion by 2020

Alexa Bosshardt MPS, RDN

December 20, 2018

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The demand for alternative sweeteners is such that, according to a report by the Freedonia Group, annual sales will hit $1.6 billion by 2020, or roughly a third higher than in 2010.

Formulating for Clean-Label Sweetness, Naturally

The most appropriate sweetener for a given formulation should be what best accomplishes desired goals

Alexa Bosshardt MPS, RDN

October 8, 2018

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In recent years, even as sucrose has continued to score at the top of consumers’ professed ingredient concerns, nutritive sweeteners and even plain sucrose have shed many of their unwarranted negative connotations to reassert their class as sweeteners of choice for a spectrum of food and beverage formulations.

Future Flavors with Added Sugars

The force driving the trends in sweeteners is not in the ingredients’ ability to reduce calories but in their ability to do so without tasting strange

Alexa Bosshardt MPS, RDN Jim Painter , PhD

November 20, 2017

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In the decade between 2003 and 2014, the percentage of kids enjoying a daily sugar- or similarly calorically sweetened beverage fell from nearly 80% to under 61%, and the number of adults doing the same fell from almost 62% down to 50%.