Technical Note #004: POD and PAC – Understanding the Role of Sugars in Gelato Balance

Two Essential Concepts for a Successful Recipe

When formulating gelato, two acronyms appear again and again: POD (Sweetening Power) and PAC (Anti-Freezing Power).

They are included in nearly every formulation software package, yet their meaning is often misunderstood.

However, these two indicators play a fundamental role in balancing a recipe.

POD primarily affects perceived sweetness, while PAC influences how gelato behaves during freezing and its texture at serving temperature.

Understanding these two concepts allows you to choose sugars more effectively and develop better-balanced recipes.

What Does POD Mean?

POD stands for Sweetening Power.

It represents a sugar's ability to provide sweetness compared with sucrose, which is used as the reference value.

The higher the POD value, the sweeter the sugar is perceived.

For example:

Sugar	POD (Typical Value)
Sucrose	100
Dextrose	75
Lactose	16
Fructose	170

Choosing the right combination of sugars allows you to adjust sweetness precisely without necessarily changing the other characteristics of the recipe.

What Does PAC Mean?

PAC stands for Anti-Freezing Power.

It represents a sugar's ability to lower the freezing point of a mix.

In practice, PAC directly affects the amount of water that remains unfrozen during freezing and therefore influences the texture of the gelato.

A higher PAC value generally produces a softer gelato at low temperatures, while a lower PAC value results in a firmer product.

PAC therefore does not affect sweetness, but rather how the gelato behaves at low temperatures.

POD and PAC Are Two Different Concepts

It is important not to confuse these two indicators.

POD measures sweetening power.

PAC describes the effect of sugars on the freezing process.

As a result, two recipes may have exactly the same sweetness while requiring very different serving temperatures.

Conversely, two recipes may have a similar texture while delivering different levels of perceived sweetness.

For this reason, sugar selection should never be based solely on sweetening power.

Finding the Right Balance

The goal of a formulator is not to achieve the highest possible POD or PAC value.

The objective is to find the best balance between:

• the desired sweetness;

• the desired texture;

• the serving temperature;

• the type of gelato or sorbet.

A well-balanced recipe is always the result of carefully selecting and combining different sugars.

With Gelato Pro Software

Gelato Pro Software automatically calculates the POD of every recipe to evaluate its sweetness level.

When it comes to PAC, the software takes a different approach. Instead of simply displaying a technical index, it uses PAC data to calculate information that is directly useful in production, such as:

• the freezing curve;

• the recommended serving temperature;

• the estimated gelato hardness;

• the proportion of frozen and unfrozen water at any given temperature.

This approach provides formulators with practical production data, without requiring them to interpret a PAC value.

💡 Did You Know?

POD and PAC are formulation indexes used to compare the behavior of different sugars. They are not physical measurements.

In practice, what really matters to a gelato maker is not the PAC value itself, but its effect on the finished product: the ideal serving temperature, texture, and ease of serving.