A remarkable sugar with a difference
Trehalose is a naturally occurring sugar found throughout nature, including in mushrooms, yeast, seaweed and a variety of other foods. Like ordinary table sugar, it is a disaccharide, but its distinctive molecular structure gives it some unusual and highly useful properties.
It looks and handles much like ordinary sugar, yet Trehalose is considerably less sweet. This makes it possible to use sugar for its functional properties without necessarily making a recipe excessively sweet. For chefs, bakers and food producers, that opens up an entirely different range of possibilities.
Treha® is the original commercially produced high-purity Trehalose, developed in Japan by Hayashibara, now Nagase Viita. The company pioneered a method of producing Trehalose efficiently from starch in 1994, transforming an ingredient that had previously been prohibitively expensive into one that could be used throughout the food industry.
Today, Treha® is used in thousands of food products around the world.
Less sweetness. More control.
One of the most immediately useful characteristics of Trehalose is its mild, clean sweetness.
Treha® is significantly less sweet than ordinary sucrose. In practical use, Trehalose is commonly described as being around half as sweet as table sugar, although perceived sweetness varies according to concentration and application.
This gives cooks and food developers greater freedom to separate, to some extent, the functional role of sugar from its sweetness.
In a dessert, for example, you may want sugar to contribute body, moisture or texture without making the finished dish excessively sweet. In savoury foods, you may want some of the functional properties of sugar without introducing an obviously sugary flavour.
Trehalose gives you another tool with which to balance those competing requirements.
A versatile ingredient, not simply a sweetener
Trehalose is valuable because of what it can do in a formulation.
Its relatively low sweetness, stability and interaction with water and food components give chefs, bakers and food producers another way to manage texture, flavour, freshness and performance.
Depending on the recipe and the way it is used, Treha® can help with:
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maintaining moisture and softness in baked goods
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supporting desirable texture and mouthfeel
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improving the stability of cakes, pastry, meringue and whipped products
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reducing deterioration caused by freezing and thawing
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improving the quality of frozen desserts and frozen dough
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helping maintain the texture of rice and noodles
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protecting the structure of proteins
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enhancing flavour and aroma
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helping suppress undesirable flavours or off-notes
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maintaining the fresh appearance and eating quality of foods for longer
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reducing waste by helping products remain appealing for longer
This combination of relatively low sweetness and useful functional properties is what makes Trehalose so interesting. It can be used not simply to sweeten a product, but as an ingredient that contributes to how that product behaves.
A baker's secret weapon
Trehalose is particularly useful in baking.
Moisture control is one of its most valuable characteristics. Depending on the formulation, Treha® can help cakes remain soft and moist, support desirable pastry texture, and help icings and other components resist unwanted moisture migration.
It is used in applications including cakes, doughnuts, cookies, puff pastry, whipped cream and meringue.
Its relatively low sweetness also gives bakers greater freedom to adjust recipes. Trehalose can replace part of the sucrose in a formulation where reducing perceived sweetness is desirable while retaining useful sugar solids and functional characteristics.
For home bakers, this means another ingredient with which to experiment. For professionals, it offers an additional way to control texture, consistency, freshness and flavour.
Exceptional potential in ice cream and frozen foods
Freezing is another area where Trehalose comes into its own.
Changes in temperature can damage the structure of food, cause water migration and adversely affect texture. Treha® is used in frozen foods, frozen dough and frozen desserts because of its ability to help reduce the effects of freezing and thawing.
That makes Trehalose particularly interesting for ice cream, sorbets, frozen desserts, pastry and foods that are prepared in advance and frozen.
Its mild sweetness is especially useful in frozen desserts, where the technical requirements of a recipe do not always correspond neatly with how sweet you want the finished product to taste.
Trehalose gives the recipe developer greater flexibility.
Sweet and savoury
Trehalose should not be thought of purely as a dessert ingredient.
Because its sweetness is relatively subdued, it can be used in both sweet and savoury food applications.
Its ability to influence moisture, texture, flavour and stability makes it relevant to chefs working with meat, fish, vegetables, rice, sauces and plant-based foods, as well as traditional bakery, confectionery and dessert applications.
For the adventurous cook, this is part of Trehalose's appeal. It is an ingredient that invites experimentation.
Naturally occurring, technologically remarkable
Trehalose itself is not an artificial invention.
It occurs naturally in many organisms and foods, including mushrooms and yeast. Its unusual relationship with water and its ability to help protect biological structures are among the reasons Trehalose has attracted scientific and commercial interest.
Commercial Treha® is produced from starch using an enzymatic process and purified into high-purity crystalline Trehalose.
Hayashibara's breakthrough production method in Japan transformed Trehalose from a rare and expensive ingredient into one that could be produced commercially at scale. Today, Nagase Viita continues to manufacture Treha® under rigorous quality controls.
Why Treha®?
Not all Trehalose is the same.
Treha® comes from the company that pioneered the modern commercial production of Trehalose. Hayashibara's breakthrough turned Trehalose from a specialist ingredient into a practical food ingredient used by chefs, food developers and manufacturers around the world.
At Trehalose UK, we have chosen to supply Treha®, the original and highest-quality Trehalose, rather than sourcing an anonymous alternative purely on price.
Whether you are a home cook discovering Trehalose for the first time, a chef looking for greater control over your recipes, or a food business incorporating Trehalose into production, we want to make genuine Japanese Treha® straightforward to buy in the UK.
Discover what Trehalose can do
Trehalose is deceptively simple: a white crystalline sugar with a clean, mild taste.
What makes it interesting is what happens when you start using it.
Experiment with sweetness. Explore texture. Improve frozen foods. Develop better baked products. Look for ways to maintain freshness. Try it in applications where ordinary sugar brings more sweetness than you really want.
Treha® gives you another ingredient in your toolkit, and a remarkably versatile one.
Available from Trehalose UK in 1kg, 2.5kg and 20kg packs.