Incredo cuts sugar by 30-50% in the foods you already eat - without artificial sweeteners, and while still writing “sugar” on the label.
For most of the food industry, cutting sugar has meant a trade-off. Swap in stevia or monk fruit and you fight an aftertaste. Reach for sugar alcohols and you change the texture - and sometimes upset the stomach. Add bulking agents and fibers and the label grows a paragraph of ingredients few shoppers recognize. Incredo, the Israeli foodtech company formerly known as DouxMatok, built its business on a different premise: don't replace sugar. Make it work harder.
The idea is disarmingly simple to state and hard to engineer. When you eat something sweet, most of the sugar never touches a taste receptor - it dissolves, passes through, and is swallowed. Incredo's patented process binds real cane or beet sugar to a trace amount of a natural carrier so that more of the sugar reaches the tongue's receptors more efficiently. The result, the company says, is that a manufacturer can remove 30 to 50 percent of the sugar in a recipe while keeping the taste, mouthfeel and texture that make a cookie feel like a cookie.
Because the product is still sugar, it can be listed on the ingredient statement as sugar. That single fact is the company's sharpest edge. In a market where “clean label” has become a purchasing requirement for major brands, a reduction technology that does not add an unfamiliar sweetener - and does not require an asterisk - is unusually easy to adopt.
The science has roots deeper than the startup. The core patent traces to Avraham Baniel, a chemist with decades of industrial research behind him, who co-founded the company with his son Eran Baniel in 2014. The company spent its early years proving the chemistry, then turned toward the far harder work of getting the ingredient into real products on real production lines.
That commercial push is where Incredo lives today. In 2021 it named Ari Melamud - an executive with a background in consumer marketing and B2B specialty ingredients - as chief executive to accelerate US commercialization. In May 2023 the company retired the DouxMatok name, rebranded to Incredo, and closed a $30 million Series C to fund the scale-up.
We work with sugar rather than replacing it - preserving sugar's sensory and functional roles while making room for better nutrition.
Real cane or beet sugar is bound to a trace amount of a natural carrier - no artificial sweetener added.
The restructured sugar dissolves and reaches the tongue's sweet receptors far more efficiently.
Manufacturers use 30-50% less sugar while keeping taste, mouthfeel and a clean label.
Figures are approximate and illustrative; actual reduction depends on the application.
A sugar-based ingredient that lets brands cut sugar 30-50% with no artificial sweeteners, no sugar alcohols and no E-numbers - still labeled as sugar.
Formulation help for reformulating chocolates, spreads and nut butters, soft bakery, crunchy biscuits and gummies - the categories where the tech performs best.
Sold to manufacturers directly and via ingredient distributors such as Batory Foods, plus joint development work with brand partners.
Incredo has positioned itself as among the cheapest sugar-reduction options on the market - a claim aimed squarely at big food's margins.
Eran Baniel and his father, chemist Avraham Baniel, launch the company around a patented approach to sugar efficiency.
The patented ingredient advances toward commercial applications in bakery and confectionery.
A Time Best Inventions mention and a feature on Netflix's “Explained” sugar episode.
Melamud takes over from Eran Baniel, who becomes executive chairman, to accelerate US commercialization.
Incredo Sugar appears in products such as PANGAIA Health bars and chocolate spreads for US consumers.
DouxMatok becomes Incredo, raises $30M, and signs a Ferrero joint development agreement plus Batory and Blommer deals.
Hundreds of active US projects reported, expected to mature with larger volumes into 2025.
The 2023 Series C was led by dsm-firmenich Venturing and Sienna Venture Capital, with support from existing investors Pitango and BlueRed Partners. Among the new backers was Teseo Capital, a private investment vehicle related to Ferrero - the company clarified that the Ferrero Group itself was not a participating investor, even as the two signed a joint development agreement to build products with the sweetener.
The round brought Incredo's reported total funding to roughly $60 million. The cash is aimed at a specific bottleneck: turning a proven ingredient into supplied volume. That means expanding R&D and commercialization across the US, Europe and Israel, and standing up the distribution relationships - Batory Foods, Blommer Chocolate - that put the ingredient within reach of North American manufacturers.
We're the cheapest sugar reduction solution on the market.
Company overviews and product demos of the sugar-reduction technology.
Conversations with CEO Ari Melamud on commercializing sugar reduction.
Links open YouTube search results; official channel not confirmed.