A new partnership between French stevia firms Stevia Natura and Stevia Internacional Europe will create a ‘European leader’ for the production and marketing of the sweetener.
Flavour and fragrance ingredient supplier Treatt has created a new tea formula adapted to the specific flavour of stevia in response to a growing market trend for natural sweeteners.
Sugar reduction – rather than substitution – is an area that fits well with consumer concerns about sugar, and big brand moves in the area could spur action from smaller players, according to Mintel.
Stevia sweeteners can now be developed through fermentation – rather than extraction from stevia plants – but it is the plant-based message that is most important to consumers, according to (plant-derived) stevia supplier PureCircle.
Stevia trade association the International Stevia Council (ISC) has called for more end users to become involved in its activities, to spur sustainability and more uniform standards in the sector.
The US FDA has issued a ‘No Objection’ GRAS letter allowing beverage manufacturers to use Pure Circle’s high-purity Reb D stevia to sweeten US products, a move that could reignite the Pepsi/Coke cola wars.
The Coca-Cola Company and JV partner PureCircle have discovered and made progress in developing a new stevia-based food ingredient Rebaudioside X and are seeking GRAS approval for it in the US.
A German court ruling that prohibits manufacturers suggesting the sweetener is natural on its labels has been widely criticised by the industry as 'misleading'
When stevia sealed EU novel foods approval in December 2011 it was heralded as the holy grail of sweeteners, but has it lived up to all the hype for chocolate?
BEVERAGEDAILY.COM SPECIAL EDITION: SWEETENER INNOVATION
Mintel analyst Laura Jones tells BeverageDaily.com that use of monk fruit as an all-natural, zero calorie sweetener has tripled in the past five years, but says she believes it still has taste issues to overcome.
The relatively flat UK sweetener market grew 7% last year boosted by EU approval of stevia extracts in late 2011, says Cargill, the supplier of Truvia-brand stevia-based sweeteners.
Geneva-based Natural Taste Consulting (NTC) has developed a ‘unique, sustainable and cost effective’ solution to significantly reduce the undesired licorice taste of stevia extracts, and bring the taste closer to sugar.
Swiss firm Evolva Holding has partnered with Cargill to develop and commercialise stevia extracts derived from a fermentation process, rather than through traditional extraction from the stevia plant.
Stevia’s credentials as a plant-derived sweetener and uptake from large manufacturers will prevent it from being seen as just another E-number, according to market research organisation Euromonitor.
Heineken’s Finnish business Hartwall claims to have launched the EU’s first alcoholic beverage sweetened with stevia onto the nation’s market this month in the form of a ‘light long’ RTD.
A new player in the stevia supply market promising purity levels “unmatched in the market place” says it will be in a position to start supplying commercial quantities of extracts by Q1, 2013 from a new state-of-the-art manufacturing facility in Thailand.
Regulatory restrictions and lessons learned from other markets are shaping the way food manufacturers are using stevia-derived sweeteners in Europe, according to supplier PureCircle.
All stevia glycosides are safe with respect to their genotoxic/carcinogenic potential, says a new review that seeks to silence doubts once and for all about the ingredient’s potential in food and beverage products.
Consumers around the world are embracing the zero-calorie, natural credentials of stevia-derived sweeteners – and the European market is about to take off, according to Zanna McFerson, president of the International Stevia Council (ISC).
Tate & Lyle tells BeverageDaily.com that its new stevia ingredient, Tasteva, can be used to halve sucrose levels in cola drinks without a bitter aftertaste, and does not use masking agents.
While the latest blends of steviol glycosides do not have the same bitter, licorice and lingering off-notes associated with some earlier stevia extracts on the market, some still contain “noticeable off-tastes compared to sugar”, says flavors giant Givaudan.
Stevia may have been hailed by manufacturers as a promising natural solution for cutting calories in a range of foods and beverages, but what do consumers think?
Food manufacturers are increasingly seeing stevia as a way to “reinvent the regular” by helping them deliver incremental calorie reductions in everyday foods, rather than simply serving as a replacement for artificial sweeteners in ‘diet’ products, says...
PureCircle says it is one step closer to establishing its high-purity stevia as a “mass volume, mainstream ingredient” after signing a joint development and supply agreement with soft drinks giant Coca-Cola.
Tate & Lyle has developed a new stevia sweetener, which it claims does not have the bitter flavour associated with many stevia sweeteners on the market.
Further evidence that steviol glycoside Reb A is no longer the only game in town when it comes to delivering high intensity natural sweetness has emerged in PureCircle’s full-year results, which show rebaudioside A accounted for just 40% of revenues in...
Researchers claim to have found a stevia muffin formulation that has all the qualities of a sugar muffin and gives four times the amount of fibre content.
PureCircle’s next generation of stevia extracts, nicknamed stevia 3.0, will help the company step up its assault on the global obesity problem, according to Jason Hecker, vice president for global marketing and innovation.
Combining different sweet components from the stevia leaf – in a similar way to combining artificial sweeteners – may be the next step toward improving the flavor of stevia-sweetened products, says PureCircle’s vp of global marketing and innovation Jason...
The number of new products sweetened with stevia extracts in the EU shows a “significant uplift” on last year according to David Jago, Mintel director of innovation and insight.
Global sweeteners firm Cargill has welcomed fresh guidance from Belgium on the labelling and advertising of steviol glycosides used to sweeten food products.
The discovery of a taste receptor that controls the bitter flavour notes associated with stevia could lead industry to new ways to improve the taste of the natural sweetener, suggest researchers.
Discussion continues over whether stevia compounds in food and drink products can be labelled as ‘natural’, with the weight of opinion favouring ‘from a natural source’ as a descriptor.
While stevia is beginning to take off in a number of baked goods and snack categories in the US, Asian and South American markets, some other emerging ‘natural’ sweeteners look ready to take it on in the segment, claims Datamonitor.
The Coca-Cola Company has confirmed to BeverageDaily.com that it has launched stevia-sweetened varieties of Sprite and Nestea in France with 30% less sugar – the first roll-out using its headline brands on a major market since European Commission (EC)...
Mint confectionery products containing the sweetener stevia could appeal to EU consumers, but each country has its own preference, according to a consultant to Cargill
While traders “jumping in and out of the stevia marketplace” are disrupting prices and standards by peddling some “awful” extracts, high-quality stevia suppliers in it for the long-haul will ultimately prosper, according to one leading player.
US Pharmacopeia has drafted new ingredient quality standards for inclusion in the Food Chemicals Codex (FCC), for probiotics, steviol glycosides, benzoates, infant formula and flavoring ingredients, and is seeking industry comments.
Cargill is looking beyond beverage to dairy as it flags up pending product launches for Truvia in both table-top and as an ingredient on the EU market next year.
In-depth understanding of how stevia works with different flavour systems, bulking agents, and other ingredients is required to optimise NPD or reformulation of existing food and drinks using the natural sweetener.
Coca-Cola said it has no reason to drop the artificial sweetener aspartame from its low or zero calorie beverage brands in the European market as it welcomes last week’s approval by the European Commission for the use of the natural sweetener stevia in...
Post-market monitoring of stevia use levels in food and drink products could see the European Commission broaden the current authorised food categories, claims a stevia trade body.
Just before the adoption of a regulation by European Commission (EC) on November 11 to approve the sale and use of steviol glycosides, Wild's senior vice president of business development, Fabiana Matucci, told BeverageDaily.com how she thought stevia...
Leading global stevia supplier PureCircle has hailed as a milestone the long-awaited EU approval of steviol glycosides, with regulation adopted by the Commission on 11 November.
Cargill has embarked on a pan-European roll-out of its stevia-based sweetener Truvia after the European Commission finally issued the green light for the sale of steviol glycosides in Europe from November 11.
