CSR stevia sugar debuts

Central Sugars Refinery (CSR) has unveiled stevia sugar on 21 January 2016. The marketing message is “Be Sweet But Not Too Sweet. ”

Here is the official description:

“A little help goes a long way. Let’s make the world a better place with daily acts of kindness. Introducing our Premium Lower Calorie Sugar, a sweetener specially formulated to offer a healthy dose of sweetness. Made from stevia-blended sugar. it is the ideal option for cutting calories without losing the sweetness”

My interpretation is the small act of kindess to yourself is to consume stevia-blended sugar to replace natural sugar. This will prevent you from ended up as the old man on the wheelchair who is probably suffering from diabetes.

The CSR Natural Brown Sugar 1KG is selling at a price of RM 3.48 at Cold Storage, while the new CSR Low Calorie Sugar 500g sells at a premium price of RM 7.69. The stevia is from PureCircle, a company based in Malaysia.

I personally does not like the aftertaste of stevia. There might be a long term trend of using stevia as a sweetener in beverages like in the Western markets where Sprite in the UK now uses stevia, but at the moment stevia usage in Malaysia is still low. By the way, Sprite sales in the UK slumped following the switch to stevia, reported the Grocer.