Better Taste, Longer-Lasting Fizz: How TM² Tackles Two Beverage Formulation Challenges
For beverage formulators and product developers, creating a great-tasting soft drink has never been straightforward. Today, the challenge goes beyond achieving the right flavour profile. With growing demand for reduced-sugar and zero-sugar beverages, R&D teams must balance sweetness, mouthfeel, aftertaste and carbonation performance, often within complex formulation requirements.
High-intensity sweeteners offer opportunities to reduce sugar but can introduce bitterness, metallic notes, delayed sweetness onset and lingering aftertastes. Meanwhile, carbonated beverages face another challenge: maintaining the fizz, freshness and sensory appeal consumers expect from the first sip to the last.
What if one technology could help solve both problems?
TM² from CO₂Sustain is designed to do exactly that. Developed to improve the taste performance of natural and artificial high-intensity sweeteners whilst also helping carbonated beverages retain their fizz for longer, TM² offers formulators and flavour houses a practical solution to two fundamental beverage development challenges.
Its taste-modifying benefits also extend to still beverages, creating opportunities across carbonated soft drinks, energy drinks, ready-to-drink teas, juice drinks and more.
The formulation challenge: Better taste with less sugar
Reducing sugar is relatively straightforward on paper. Recreating the sensory experience of a sugar-sweetened beverage is considerably more difficult.
Sugar contributes more than sweetness. It influences mouthfeel, body, flavour perception and overall balance. Replacing it with high-intensity sweeteners can significantly alter that experience.
Sweeteners such as stevia, sucralose, aspartame and acesulfame potassium (Ace-K) each bring different sensory characteristics. While delivering sweetness at much lower concentrations than sugar, they can create formulation challenges.
Stevia, for example, can produce bitter, liquorice-like or lingering notes, depending on the steviol glycosides used. Other sweeteners may contribute metallic impressions, while sweetener blends can produce an uneven sweetness curve.
The objective is not simply to mask undesirable flavours. It is to create a balanced profile where sweetness develops naturally, complements the intended flavour and finishes cleanly.
This is where TM² offers a different approach.
TM²: Improving sweetness without adding complexity
TM² is a specialist ingredient technology developed by CO₂Sustain to modify how high-intensity sweeteners are perceived in finished beverages.
Rather than simply increasing sweetness, TM² addresses sensory characteristics that can make reduced-sugar and zero-sugar beverages less appealing.
Its principal taste-modifying functions include improving sweetness onset, reducing bitter and astringent aftertastes, supporting a balanced sweetness profile and enhancing overall flavour harmony.
TM² works by encapsulating less soluble components within a beverage formulation, helping modify ingredient interactions and their contribution to the sensory experience.
The result is a more integrated taste profile, with fewer distracting off-notes and sweetness characteristics closer to those associated with sugar.
For formulators, flavour houses and beverage developers, this offers opportunities to improve formulations without necessarily introducing multiple masking ingredients or undertaking extensive reformulation.
It can also provide greater flexibility when selecting sweetener systems. CO₂Sustain’s development work indicates that TM² can help shift the taste profile of stevia Reb A towards that of Reb M, potentially offering an alternative route to improved stevia performance.
Importantly, these benefits extend to still drinks, where sweetness quality, flavour clarity and aftertaste are equally important.
Putting TM² to the sensory test
For R&D teams, performance claims must be supported by measurable sensory outcomes.
CO₂Sustain has worked with independent sensory research providers to evaluate TM² in non-sugar-sweetened still beverages. Published research compares formulations with and without TM² across sweetness onset, overall sweetness, lasting sweetness, bitter aftertaste, astringent aftertaste and overall aftertaste.
Three applications provide particularly useful insights.
Stevia-sweetened lemon and lime
The TM² formulation scored significantly higher for lasting sweetness than the untreated control. Sweetness onset, overall sweetness and aftertaste attributes showed parity.
These findings demonstrate how TM² can enhance sweetness duration without materially changing other measured sensory characteristics.
Stevia-sweetened peach iced tea
The TM²-treated formulation demonstrated significantly higher lasting sweetness alongside significantly lower bitter and astringent aftertaste scores.
This is particularly relevant for tea-based beverages, where interactions between tea polyphenols and sweeteners can make achieving a balanced taste profile challenging.
Sucralose-sweetened tropical juice drink
TM² significantly increased lasting sweetness while reducing bitter and astringent aftertaste scores. Sweetness onset was also significantly faster, an important consideration when developing reduced-sugar drinks intended to replicate the immediate sweetness associated with sucrose.
These findings demonstrate measurable improvements across different sweetener systems and beverage categories, although results vary by formulation.
They also highlight an important distinction: sweetness intensity alone does not determine sensory quality. The timing, duration and finish of sweetness all influence the drinking experience. Source: P6-9
The other half of the equation: Keeping the fizz for longer
While taste is central to beverage development, carbonation plays an equally important role in sparkling drinks.
Carbon dioxide contributes the characteristic tingle, bite and refreshing sensation consumers associate with carbonated beverages. It also influences flavour perception, acidity and mouthfeel.
Maintaining carbonation throughout shelf life and consumption, however, presents challenges.
CO₂ gradually escapes through packaging materials such as PET, while temperature, handling and pouring influence carbonation release. These factors affect product consistency and consumer satisfaction.
TM² addresses this through its interaction with CO₂ bubbles.
CO₂Sustain’s research indicates that TM² encapsulates bubbles during carbonation, encouraging smaller, denser and more uniform bubbles that are less prone to combining into larger bubbles, a process known as coalescence.
By influencing bubble behaviour, TM² helps retain dissolved CO₂ for longer and supports more controlled release during consumption.
The benefits extend beyond simply making a drink fizzier.
A consistent carbonation profile helps preserve the characteristic tingle, bite and refreshing mouthfeel throughout the drinking experience.
For formulators developing reduced-sugar carbonated drinks, this creates a valuable combination. TM² can address undesirable sweetener aftertastes while supporting carbonation retention, bringing two important aspects of sensory performance together in one technology.
Carbonation performance with commercial benefits
Improved carbonation retention offers advantages beyond the consumer experience.
Carbonation stability is particularly important for manufacturers using PET packaging or supplying markets where products experience elevated temperatures during distribution and storage.
CO₂Sustain reports that TM² can help extend carbonation shelf life and reduce the amount of CO₂ required during production.
According to the company’s technical literature, manufacturers may achieve CO₂ savings of approximately 10% to 15% or maintain comparable sensory carbonation at lower initial carbonation levels. Source.
Actual performance depends on formulation, packaging, processing conditions and target carbonation levels, making application-specific validation essential.
For R&D and operations teams, improved carbonation performance could support packaging optimisation, reduced CO₂ consumption and more consistent finished-product quality.
TM² also offers a processing advantage.
Certain sweetener systems, particularly those containing stevia, can create excessive foaming during filling, contributing to slower filling speeds, product losses and production interruptions.
By helping control excessive foaming, TM² has the potential to support smoother filling operations and improved manufacturing efficiency.
The same technology improving consumer sensory performance may therefore deliver operational benefits before the product reaches the shelf.
One technology, multiple beverage applications
For formulators, flavour houses and beverage R&D teams, versatility matters.
Developing beverages often involves balancing multiple ingredients, each addressing a specific technical or sensory challenge. This can increase formulation complexity and extend development timelines.
TM² offers an integrated approach by addressing taste and carbonation performance within a single technology.
In carbonated soft drinks, its combined functionality can improve sweetener perception while maintaining the fizz and refreshing character consumers expect.
In still beverages, including ready-to-drink teas, juice drinks, sports drinks and flavoured waters, TM² can support balanced sweetness and reduce undesirable aftertastes.
Energy drinks and functional beverages present further opportunities, particularly where complex ingredient systems and high-intensity sweeteners create sensory challenges.
For flavour houses, TM² can be evaluated alongside existing flavour and sweetener systems, potentially helping developers achieve target sensory profiles with fewer adjustments.
This versatility makes TM² relevant to both new product development and the optimisation of established brands.
From laboratory evaluation to commercial formulation
Any ingredient technology must ultimately demonstrate its value within the finished beverage.
CO₂Sustain works directly with manufacturers, formulators, flavour houses and product development teams to evaluate TM² within their own formulations.
Technical support includes taste optimisation, carbonation performance analysis, application guidance and dosing recommendations.
Developers can submit syrup or finished beverage samples for evaluation and receive TM²-treated samples alongside untreated controls, enabling direct sensory comparison.
Where appropriate, CO₂Sustain can provide taste testing and carbonation data to support technical assessment.
This allows R&D teams to evaluate TM² against their formulation objectives before progressing to production-scale trials.
Better taste. Better fizz. One solution.
The future of soft drink formulation increasingly depends on delivering excellent sensory experiences while managing sugar reduction, ingredient complexity and production efficiency.
TM² brings together two important areas of beverage performance: improving the taste of high-intensity sweeteners and helping carbonated beverages retain their fizz for longer.
Independent sensory research demonstrates improvements in lasting sweetness and reductions in undesirable aftertastes across selected still beverage formulations. Meanwhile, CO₂Sustain’s carbonation technology offers opportunities to improve fizz retention, carbonation efficiency and production performance.
For formulators and flavour houses, TM² presents an opportunity to create beverages that taste better, deliver a more consistent drinking experience and perform more effectively from formulation to final sip.
Visit CO₂Sustain or contact [email protected] to arrange a formulation evaluation.