Sweetener manufacturer Manus, aims to democratize monk fruit production and availability in the US via fermentation at its facility in Augusta, Ga.
Monk fruit, an indigenous melon to Southern China’s Guangxi province, is one of the top natural sweeteners in the US for its zero calorie and solubility across food and beverage applications. Rising demand for monk fruit as a natural sugar-reduction ingredient prompted Manus, a producer of other natural sweeteners like stevia and Reb M, to build a more stable and sustainable supply chain, the company said
“That’s the biggest challenge. [Monk fruit] is only produced in one part of the world, in one region,” which is where biotechnology plays a role in developing a “scalable, cost-effective and sustainable manufacturing process,” explained Ajikumar Parayil, founder and CEO, Manus.
Parayil continued, “Right now, the problem for a variety of CPG companies is that [monk fruit] is just not available at the scale that they need, and there’s inherently a lot of price and supply chain volatility.”
Made in the US
Manus’ fermentation-produced monk fruit emerged from a pilot program launched several months ago, in which the company isolated mogroside V, the fruit’s sweet, soluble, calorie-free compound that is 250–400 times sweeter than sugar.
The fermentation process required “more than 30 different biosynthetic enzymatic steps” inside a single cell to produce the complex mogroside, explained Christine Santos, chief technology officer, Manus.
“We’ve now circumvented all of the technical and scale-up risks associated with this process,” which allows Manus to progress towards pre-commercial scale at its pilot facility in Augusta, Ga., said Santos.
The company is supplying kilogram-scale samples to customers for formulation and product development, with plans to scale to metric-ton production by year’s end
Manus’ scalable process places “monk fruit not just as a niche, natural sweetener, but now a sugar reduction solution that can be deployed a lot more broadly [that] is also made in the US” across food and beverage, said Parayil.
Overcoming scalability challenges
Beyond engineering cells to produce the sweetener, Santos notes scaling “a very robust fermentation process” as another challenge. The company relies on food-grade, pressurized steel bioreactors to use inputs like glucose, to create “high yields of the final monk fruit sweetener,” she explained.
To ensure a purified ingredient that aligns with consumer and CPG brands’ clean label expectations, Manus uses a water-based, solvent-free purification process for a soluble monk fruit that is highly concentrated and nature identical, Santos said.
“When we give the product to customers, it’s going to be just mogrosides,” added Parayil.
Manus is currently working on the testing required for a final GRAS notice and planning to launch its US-made monk fruit early this year, Santos said.
