From The Times of London:

"The sugar content of British chocolate bars and biscuits could fall by 40 per cent without affecting the flavour and without the need for artificial sweeteners.

Confectioners are planning to alter their recipes after scientists found a way to make sugar better at reaching the receptors on the tongue, allowing for a reduction in sugar without any loss of sweetness.

Most of the sugar in a cake or biscuit misses the taste buds and goes straight to the stomach. In the pharmaceutical industry, drug molecules are often added to a form of “carrier” designed to ensure that the correct dosage reaches the right part of the body.

DouxMatok, an Israeli company, has discovered a way to mimic this process with sugar. Researchers took microscopic particles of tasteless minerals such as silica, which occurs naturally in fruits and vegetables and generally passes through the body, and coated the surface of these particles with sugar molecules.

This helps to target sugar molecules straight to the taste buds and makes them linger there for longer. Doux-Matok has signed a deal with the German company Südzucker, Europe’s biggest sugar producer, to bring its product to Europe.

Eran Baniel, the chief executive of DouxMatok, said: “The deal for Europe includes the UK. We are working [with British companies] at making the adjustments to their recipes for a 40 per cent sugar reduction . . . I’d say we will see it on UK shelves by 2020.”

Pretty clever stuff; If it works as advertised, I hope we see it in NZ.