Fletcher claims the timing was a coincidence, but he was pondering the potential for low-fat, low-sugar donuts when the UK government would regulate where and how unhealthy foods could be restricted. It just so happened that they were starting to move to introduce the bill. It is sold.
The new rules, which went into effect in October 2022, will ban the sale of certain foods high in fat, sugar and salt near supermarket entrances, aisle ends and near cash registers. Anyone who could make a donut that avoided certain standards of fat, sugar and salt was waiting in a sea of prime supermarket real estate. With a stroke of the Senator, the stage is set for a new donut war.
space race
Placement is everything in supermarkets, and the most popular spots are at the end of each aisle. “Aisle ends serve as signposts for where people should go,” says Will Morgan, associate director of consumer research firm Spark Emotions. As shoppers wander down the power aisle (Morgan’s term for the central aisle that connects everything else), they come under attack from the brands that paid to put their products in the best possible position. According to Morgan’s data, 40% of shoppers who stop at the end of a promotional aisle continue to explore the entire aisle beyond. The few meters of shelf space at the end of the aisle aren’t just for selling discounted potato chips. It reminds shoppers that the world of potato chips is just a short walk away.
The new rule is an attempt to wrest control of the end of the aisle from generally unhealthy foods. “The first thing you see when you walk into a supermarket is often not the food you should be eating,” says Lauren Bundy, a food policy researcher at the University of Oxford. But this rule has another purpose. It’s trying to get food companies to reformulate their snacks into healthier versions that can be sold anywhere. In 2018, the UK government began taxing soft drinks containing more than 5g of sugar per 100ml. Beverage companies scrambled to replace sugar with artificial sweeteners, and a year later the average household was buying the same amount of soft drinks with 10 percent less sugar than before.
That basically makes the policy successful, Bundy said. There are still questions about how good sweeteners are for us, but the sugar tax will allow food companies to stay profitable and shoppers to keep drinking soda while lowering the sugar levels in soft drinks. I made it. It was a pretty good result for a government like the UK that wants to tackle the obesity crisis without telling its citizens what to do or angering big food companies.
However, reconditioning soft drinks is relatively easy. Simply replace the sugar with an artificial sweetener. Fletcher faces an even bigger challenge to get around the UK government’s new snack ban. He had to remove 70 percent of the fat and 30-40 percent of the sugar from his supermarket donuts. “What I’ve discovered is that as soon as you do that, all hell breaks loose and it tastes horrible,” he says. Fat and sugar play a surprising number of roles in donuts. They feed the yeast, extend shelf life, improve mouthfeel and give the surface of the glaze a crackling sensation. Changing the proportions will quickly result in lousy donuts.
A complex interplay of fats, proteins and sugars comes into play when the dough is dipped in the fryer. Most donuts are cooked this way.
