Low-calorie sweeteners that behave more like table sugar may be moving closer to everyday food products. Researchers in Australia have developed a more cost-efficient way to produce rare sugars using genetically engineered bacteria.
The development matters because rare sugars are attractive to food makers for a simple reason: they taste sweet, offer a similar texture, and perform better in baking than many other sugar alternatives. The main obstacle has long been production cost, not performance.
At the University of Queensland, researchers say this kind of low-calorie rare sugar could soon appear on supermarket shelves. That outlook has strengthened after the team used fermentation to convert sugarcane into a high-value sweetener.
How the process works
The work was carried out by synthetic biology and bioprocess engineering specialists at the University of Queensland’s Biosustainability Hub. They used what they describe as a microbial cell factory to produce rare sugar from sugarcane feedstock.
In practice, bacteria were engineered to convert sugarcane sugar into rare sugar. The bacteria used in the project came from local sugarcane fields and were developed further to generate a more commercially valuable compound.
Axayacatl Gonzalez, manager of the Cell Design Studio facility at UQ’s Australian Institute for Bioengineering and Nanotechnology, said expensive production has been the main factor limiting wider use of rare sugars. He leads the project alongside industry partner MSF Sugar.
Zhong Qifeng, a food and beverage accelerator research and development scientist, described the approach in straightforward terms. Once the right bacterial strain is identified, the feedstock goes in and the rare sugar comes out.
Qifeng engineered the bacteria to produce rare sugar from sugarcane syrup. The method shows how biotechnology can turn a well-established agricultural commodity into a food ingredient with greater added value.
Why rare sugar is drawing attention
Rare sugar stands out because it can closely mirror the behavior of regular sugar in food applications. Its sweetness is similar, its texture is close, and its baking response aligns with conventional sugar.
For food and beverage companies, that matters because many alternative sweeteners cannot fully replicate sugar’s functional role. Rare sugar therefore has a stronger chance of fitting into product formulations without changing the consumer experience too much.
Its lower calorie content adds to its appeal at a time when demand for healthier sweetening options remains strong. If production becomes more efficient, rare sugar could move beyond niche use and into a much larger market.
What it could mean for Australia’s sugar industry
Australia is one of the world’s major sugar exporters, which means this research carries economic significance as well as technical value. Turning sugarcane into rare sugar could create a new route for diversification in an established industry.
Industry representatives believe Australia could benefit economically by expanding into rare sugar production. That would allow sugarcane to be sold not only as conventional sugar, but also as a higher-value processed ingredient.
The involvement of MSF Sugar shows the project was designed with commercial use in mind from the start. Such collaboration is important if the technology is to move beyond the lab and into practical manufacturing.
The initiative also received support from Australia’s national research infrastructure funding, which is helping extend new bio-based solutions. That backing includes work that uses microbial engineering to process agricultural feedstocks in new ways.
If the approach scales successfully, sugarcane could become more than a traditional sweetener source. It may also become a platform for a new generation of low-calorie sweeteners designed for food and beverage use.
