Sorbitol

About This Product

Sorbitol is a six-carbon sugar alcohol, formula C6H14O6, with CAS number 50-70-4 and the European additive number E420. The liquid grade, E420(ii), is a clear, colourless, viscous 70 percent aqueous solution produced by hydrogenating glucose. It occurs naturally in stone fruit.

In liquid form it is bought chiefly for water management rather than sweetness. Sorbitol is strongly hygroscopic: its six hydroxyl groups hydrogen-bond to water and hold it, so it keeps products soft and pliable and slows the staling and drying that would otherwise shorten shelf life. That is why it appears in toothpaste, where it stops the paste hardening in the tube, and in soft confectionery. The solution form also plasticises and controls crystallisation in sugar-free sweets. It is about 60 percent as sweet as sucrose with a noticeable cooling effect, provides around 2.6 calories per gram and is not fermented by oral bacteria, so it is non-cariogenic and is metabolised largely independently of insulin. Like all polyols it is incompletely absorbed and is fermented in the large intestine, so EU products carrying more than 10 percent polyol must warn that excessive consumption may have a laxative effect.

It is used in toothpaste and oral care, sugar-free confectionery and chewing gum, baked goods, jams, pharmaceutical syrups and as a humectant.

Bio Green Foods supplies sorbitol liquid to specification on sorbitol content, dry solids, reducing sugars, pH, colour, sulphated ash and heavy metals.