Abstract: Excessive sugar consumption poses a global public health challenge, driving the food industry to seek innovative sugar reduction strategies. Traditional approaches often compromise product sensory quality and fail to meet consumer demands for clean-label, natural and healthy ingredients. This review systematically summarizes the molecular mechanisms underlying sweet taste perception, with a focus on the structural characteristics and functional advantages of non-nutritive sweeteners and bulk sweeteners. It further integrates multiple sugar reduction strategies, including direct sugar reduction, sweetener blending, taste–taste interactions, cross-modal multisensory synergy, microbial fermentation, and microencapsulation delivery systems, and discusses the mechanisms and synergistic potential of each strategy. Future research directions should prioritize receptor structure-driven precision design of sweet molecules, synthetic biology-enabled high-efficiency production of sweet-tasting proteins, and artificial intelligence-assisted formulation optimization. This review aims to provide a theoretical foundation for the development of reduced-sugar food systems that deliver both health benefits and superior sensory quality.

Key words: sugar reduction strategies, sweet taste perception mechanisms, natural sweeteners, sweet-tasting proteins, rare sugars