Food Business News - January 29, 2013 - 26

Ingredient Innovations

Stevia’s global reach expands
Marketing to diﬀerent geographic areas may require taste alterations and regulatory knowledge
tevia has been a food
and beverage ingredient
in Asia for decades. In
recent years the zero-calorie,
high-intensity sweetener has
expanded in use in the United
States, undergone a year of
integration in Europe and
recently received approval for
use in foods and beverages in
Canada.
“We are seeing clear interest globally for stevia as many
regions of the world face rising obesity rates and consumer
trends toward more natural
products take hold,” said Nate
Yates, business director for the
Enliten sweetener brand from
Ingredion, Inc., Westchester, Ill.
“Certainly Asia has historically
been a strong region for stevia,
but we have seen an impact and
growth on all continents. The
value proposition of stevia will
continue to drive global growth
in both food and beverage.”
Food and beverage companies looking to take advantage of stevia’s global opportunities may wish to understand regulations by specific
country and taste expectations by geographic area.

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“(Regulation is) very complicated, and that’s why it’s so important to work with someone
who has the regulation prowess
to lead in the right direction,” said
Breah Ostendorf, global commercial manager for Truvia, a stevia
brand from Cargill, Minneapolis.
The U.S. Pharmacopeial
Convention (U.S.P.) includes
stevia in proposed revisions for
its Food Chemicals Codex, a
compendium of food ingredient
quality standards. The stevia
revisions will focus on an approach for separating and measuring nine steviol glycosides
present in the stevia leaf.

The U.S.P. already has a monograph for Rebaudioside A, one
of the glycosides. Now a range
of steviol glycosides, including
mixtures of different glycosides,
are being used in a variety of
products. The new Food Chemicals Codex proposal uses two
new U.S.P. reference standards:
Rebaudioside A and steviol glycosides system suitability for
identification and measurement
of individual glycosides.

U.S. approval opens market
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration in December 2008
ruled it had no questions about

Regulatory approvals
for stevia
Dec. 17, 2008: The U.S. Food and Drug Administration said it had no
questions about two petitions regarding the safety of using Rebaudioside
A, an extract from the stevia plant, in foods and beverages.
Nov. 14, 2011: The European Commission authorized the use of stevia at
appropriate levels for 31 diﬀerent food categories, including soft drinks,
desserts, confectionery and table top sweeteners.
Nov. 30, 2012: Health Canada modiﬁed its list of permitted sweeteners
to enable the use of steviol gylcosides as a table-top sweetener and as a
sweetener in certain food categories. FBN

the safe use of certain stevia
extracts in foods and beverages. Stevia’s use soon increased
globally. According to a 2011
report from Zenith International, worldwide sales of stevia reached an estimated 3,500
tonnes in 2010 for an overall
market value of $285 million,
which marked a 27% increase
from 2009. The report said the
global market for stevia will
reach 11,000 tonnes, equivalent
to $825 million by value, by 2014.
The European Commission
in November 2011 authorized
the use of stevia extracts at appropriate levels for 31 food categories, including soft drinks,
desserts, confectionery and
table top sweeteners.
While stevia extracts, since
they are hundreds of times
sweeter than sugar, may be
used to replace the sweetness
lost in sugar reduction, they
are unable to replace sugar’s
bulk. U.S. formulators often
have used erythritol, a polyol,
to replace the bulk. Suppliers
of erythritol and stevia promote
their ingredients as natural.
A problem arises in Europe,
however. Erythritol is not

January 29, 2013

Food Business News - January 29, 2013

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