DSM has announced the establishment of Avansya V.O.F., a 50:50 joint venture between Cargill and DSM. Both parties announced their intention to establish this joint venture on November 8, 2018 subject to regulatory approvals. Avansya will produce “zero-calorie, great-tasting sweeteners through fermentation” and will be headquartered at the Biotech Campus Delft (Netherlands).

As food and beverage producers look to significantly reduce calories in their offerings to consumers, they are in need of non-artificial, zero-calorie, great-tasting sweetener options. Avansya will produce highly sought-after, sweet-tasting molecules, such as steviol glycosides Reb M and Reb D through fermentation, giving food and beverage manufacturers an even more scalable, sustainable and low cost-in-use solution than if these same molecules were extracted from the stevia leaf. Avansya’s sweeteners will be produced at a fermentation facility at the Cargill site in Blair and Avansya will market its sweeteners under the EverSweet brand.

Oscar Goddijn will serve as CEO for Avansya, while Andrew Ohmes will serve as VP Marketing & Sales. Biotechnologist Goddijn has been with DSM for more than 16 years, most recently as Vice President Stevia & Sugar Reduction Products. Ohmes continues to be globally responsible for high intensity sweeteners at Cargill, wher he has built his career since 2000, in addition to his VP Marketing & Sales role for Avansya.

The initial deal between DSM and Cargill was announced in November 2018. 

At the time, we reported on how the partnership leverages the two companies’ highly complementary strengths for bringing to market fermentation-derived Reb M and Reb D steviol glycosides:
• DSM brings its leading biotechnology know-how, providing R&D expertise, including strain development and fermentation process development capabilities, as well as customer relationships in specific market segments;
• Cargill brings its unrivaled application expertise and global commercial footprint in the sweetener market, as well as large-scale fermentation capacity with access to co-located, raw material suppliers at its Blair, Nebraska (US) site. 

The joint venture will make use of a new fermentation facility being built at the site in Blair, which is expected to be completed and operating in summer 2019.

In response to the announcement, Evolva, the company pioneering the rapid development, scale-up, and commercialization of sustainably sourced, next-generation ingredients, stressed that their existing royalty contract with Cargill is unchanged and remains in force on all EverSweet products sold. “This joint venture is positive news for Evolva shareholders because it has the potential to expand and accelerate global market adoption of EverSweet sweeteners,” says Oliver Walker, Evolva’s CEO.

“The world’s food and beverage producers need the kind of non-artificial, zero-calorie, great-tasting sweetener options that EverSweet sweeteners can supply,” said Cargill Vice President Food Segment North America, Chris Simons. “This joint venture allows us to advance the EverSweet product line even faster to address that global food and beverage sweetener paradigm shift.”

Last week, Evolva reported that it has completed its transformation process that began in August 2017. Releasing its latest financial results, the company says it’s seeing a solid product sales growth trend and has a well-developed product pipeline to support future sales growth.