Coca-Cola exploring new sweetener for beverages

Posted: 5/15/2008 2:45:00 PM
By Matt Casey, BevNET Staff Writer

Coca-Cola is exploring beverage applications for Truvia – the natural, zero-calorie sweetener the company co-developed with Cargill – but a representative from the company declined to say when those products might launch.

“For competitive reasons we cannot discuss the timing,” said Dr. Rhona Applebaum, vice president and chief scientific and regulatory officer for The Coca-Cola Company.

Zanna McFerson, business director for Cargill Sweetness Solutions, also dodged the question of whether Coca-Cola would have exclusive access to the sweetener in the beverage world.

“This collaboration is about combining the core competencies of both companies to bring this product to market,” McFerson said. She added that Cargill would bring the sweetener to the food market while Coca-Cola would bring it to the beverage market.

McFerson and Applebaum spoke Thursday during a teleconference announcing completed research on the product. The sweetener is 200 times sweeter than sugar and derived from the stevia plant by way of drying the leaves then steeping them in water.

Stevia sweeteners are already widely used around the world, but previous attempts to bring the product to the U.S. food market have been blocked by the Food and Drug Administration, most recently in 2004 – though stevia products are available as “dietary supplements.”

Leslie Curry, Regulatory and Scientific Affairs Director for Cargill Food and Ingredient Systems, said Truvia, which has not yet been approved by the FDA, differs from previous U.S. attempts at stevia sweeteners because it is purer, more consistent and better researched.

For more information on Truvia, click here.

Source: BevNET.com Staff

Cargill sees new sweetener on market in '08

© Thomson Reuters 2008. Thu May 15, 2008 11:49am EDT

By Martinne Geller

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Agribusiness and commodity trading group Cargill Inc said on Thursday that it expects its no-calorie sweetener made from a South American shrub to be on the U.S. market by the end of the year.

In an interview, Marcelo Montero, president of Cargill's Health and Nutrition unit, said the product, called rebiana, will be available this year as a tabletop sweetener.

Rebiana, which will be sold under the name Truvia, is made from the leaves of a shrub called stevia that is native to Paraguay and will provide a natural alternative to chemical sweeteners including Sweet'N Low and Equal.

Stevia is not approved as a food additive by health regulators in the United States or the European Union, though it can be sold as a dietary supplement. It is approved in a dozen countries, including Japan, China and Brazil.

Privately-held Cargill, which is handling the growing of the plants and the regulatory process, said it has notified the U.S. Food and Drug Association that Truvia is safe, based on scientific studies being published on Thursday in the journal "Food and Chemical Toxicology."

The company said FDA approval typically takes anywhere from two to six months.

Montero said Cargill is working with a number of companies on projects involving the sweetener, but declined to give a timeline for the launch of other rebiana-sweetened food products.

A spokesman for Coca-Cola Co, which co-developed the product with Cargill and has exclusive rights to use it in beverages, also declined to offer a schedule.

"We'll certainly explore the different applications," said Coke spokesman Kelly Brooks.

Most full-calorie soft drinks sold in the United States are sweetened with high-fructose corn syrup, a cheap alternative to cane sugar. But corn syrup has been criticized for contributing to obesity and has soared in price due to climbing demand for ethanol, which is also made from corn.

Lower-calorie sodas are now made with artificial sweeteners such as saccharin, aspartame and sucralose, which are sold under the respective brand names of Sweet'N Low, NutraSweet and Equal, and Splenda, which is made by Tate & Lyle Plc.

Drinks sweetened with rebiana would likely appeal to health-conscious consumers and natural grocers, such as Whole Foods Market Inc, that tend to carry products made from natural ingredients.

One of Cargill's rebiana suppliers, GLG Life Tech Corp, said earlier this month that it started building a 500-metric-ton stevia processing facility in Qingdao, China.

(Editing by Brian Moss)