Whether it's pillowy fondant, sticky caramel, gooey chocolate spread or glossy glazes, today’s consumers of confectionery want it all, demanding products that deliver on taste and texture alike. Extra crunchy, super crispy – texture descriptions on new products have become more elaborate over the last couple of years, along with the increasing use of superlatives to convey the ultimate texture experience.

It’s not just the words that are getting more elaborate. Visual texture descriptions are also receiving more prominence on packaging, while the size of the texture-evoking words is also increasing. Texture has become more dominant due to bigger inclusions such as chunks, clusters and nuggets, more innovative shapes have evolved to help achieve extra crunch or improved taste and the idea of providing a multitude of textures all at once, such as chewy, smooth and crunchy.

The myriad of ingredients available to formulate such texturally amazing products is endless. Once designed, however, the texture will need to be quantified because, after it’s bought and favoured, any new confectionery product will then survive only as long as the manufacturer is able to provide it at consistent quality to meet the consumer’s expectations.

A wide range of CONFECTIONERY PRODUCT test methods is built into Exponent Texture Analyser software and will automatically load at the click of a button. We help make your testing quicker to access and the analysis of your product properties already prepared for you.

Typical measurements include: • Firmness / Hardness • Stickiness • Stringiness • Tensile Strength • Coating Crispness • Break Strength / Snapping Force • Flexibility • Gel Strength • Fracturability • Springiness •

Over the years, we’ve worked with top scientists and companies in the field to develop such fixtures as the Flexible Substrate Clamp for measuring sweet wrapper release and the Acoustic Envelope Detector for the extra dimension of sound measurement.