At first, our goal was to create a product that was 80 kcal per serving.
In the spring of 2001, Glico consulted hospital dieticians about the development and production of an ice cream type dessert able to be enjoyed not only by those with diabetes, but also by those concerned about their blood sugar levels. We wanted a product that was 80 kcal per serving, without any added saccharide content but also satisfying.
In Japan, 80 kcal is seen as one unit during a dietary therapy. Normally, a 120 ml serving of ice cream has 250 kcal featuring a rich taste from the use of cream - a dairy product containing butterfat - and sugar. At first, we tried to reduce those ingredients, however, the resulting taste was very far from being tasty. We needed to find the ingredients that would enable us to achieve our goal of 80 kcal per serving as well as feature the same taste as an ordinary ice cream.
Then we started using tofu and dietary fiber in order to enhance the taste. We tried numerous times to make it more filling, enhance the texture and give it a sweet taste without using any sugar. That is how “Calorie Control Ice” - the forerunner of SUNAO - was born.
From “low in calories” to “low in carbs”.
After a while we realized that not only the reduction of calories was important but that we also needed to pay attention to saccharides. So we started focusing on the concept of “low carbs diet” - the concept of restricting the amount of saccharides to between 70 and 130g per day in general and to 10g per day for desserts - and after a process of trial-and-error reformulation, we succeeded in reducing saccharides per meal to 10g or less.
Meet SUNAO - Glico's 100% delicious but guilt-free ice cream.
Calorie Control Ice was renewed as SUNAO in 2017 - striving to be an ice cream that everybody could fully enjoy and that was not only healthy but also delicious. Based on a thorough consideration of dairy and saccharide content and by including original ingredients developed by Glico, we are able to offer rich flavor, a smooth texture, and a melt-in-the-mouth quality in a dessert having only 80 kcal and a saccharide content of 10g or less.
＊ 40 ％ ～ 50 ％ less saccharides than an average ice cream with milk-solids content of 3% or greater (based on the Japanese table of food composition 2015)
