Bayn Europe and Barentz have mutually agreed upon the termination of their exclusive stevia distribution contract in Europe effective from Sep 2016, a new cooperation model is under discussion. The decision comes after mutual evaluation of market potential and business strategies, and it opens up for Bayn Europe to work also with other solution driven partners to reach more food and beverage companies for healthy sugar reduction in Europe.

The exclusivity contract for Stevia solution between Bayn Europe and Barentz has been in effect since March 2012, and was signed after a one-year evolution following the approval of stevia in the EU Nov 2011. The two companies have since worked together to set a sales strategy for stevia on the European market.

“The cooperation with Barentz enabled a route to market for Bayn’s Stevia application in European market. As the market is now maturing, both parties saw a need to renegotiate our cooperation agreement. The termination of the exclusivity supports Bayn’s continued market expansion and opens up for us to work with new partners for our sugar reduction solution. We look forward to continuing to provide Stevia as a single ingredient to Barentz as a market leader in food ingredient distribution,” said Lucy Dahlgren, MD Bayn Europe AB.

Speaking to FoodIngredientsFirst, Dahlgren said: “European market for stevia have many boundaries in terms of taste profile and uncertainties - that complicate producers to go ahead with sugar reduction, to know all rules and applications demand specific knowledge wher the industry lacks and struggles. Bayn has more than 7 years of experience and core competence to inform customers about changing regulation in their respective areas, based on both technical capability and commercial feasibility.” 

“Just like other high intensity sweeteners, Stevia provides sweet taste without adding to the daily energy intakes because of the low calorie,” she notes. “From the scientific research aspects, Stevia is a natural sweetener with potential health benefits, but from business and regulation aspects, Stevia’s new taste profile and cost compared to other sweeteners have fierce competition with other sweeteners, regulation and labeling confines Stevia’s positive property and public perception.

“The food industry is undergoing a major paradigm shift, in the middle of this is Bayn Europe,” Dahlgren adds. 

“Bayn has evolved from a stevia specialist to a sugar reduction specialist. During the pasted years both companies have invested a lot in market and sales exploring and gained market trust, Barentz decided to focus on Stevia as a raw material for the future market, and the termination of exclusivity was based on Barentz business model and focus.” said Geert Ingelbert, VP Food and Nutrition, Barentz.

Since 2011, Bayn has worked closely with Barentz to train their sales team and to give them Stevia technical application for achieving sugar reduction benefit. The cooperation has helped both companies gain customer relationships in the field of sugar reduction by using Stevia, while also having proven the technical capability in taste and texture of Bayn’s sugar reduction solutions based on stevia.

“Sugar is a multi-functional ingredient and plays a key role in the flavor, structure and function of food we consume today. Reducing and removal of sugar from food gives rise to changes and problems which cannot be addressed by solely adding sweet taste like Stevia. We are now discussing with strategic partners who are focused on bringing market value in a holistic and systematic manner for healthy sugar reduction,” continued Dahlgren.

Bayn Europe becomes a one-stop-shop for healthy sugar reduction

Separately, Bayn Europe have expanded its ingredient portfolio line Navia to be a one-stop-shop to food and beverage producers. 

More food and beverage producers look for ways to reduce sugar with ingredients from natural sources whiles maintaining taste and texture of their products. Bayn Europe has therefore expanded its ingredient product line Navia to serve food producers with a systematic platform for sugar reduction.

“There is no single ingredient that can replac sugar in processed food. Today food producers purchase ingredients from different distributors or ingredient manufactures, it is time consuming and costly. Therefore we decided to launch the ingredient line Navia to give more options to our customers in food industry,” explains Dahlgren.

The Navia line includes a product range of food additives from natural botanical extracts and ingredients used for realization sugar reduction. For example natural coloring like tomato extracts, natural preservatives like rosemary extract and natural sweeteners like stevia extract. The whole concept addresses the taste, texture and stability for tasty and healthy products.

“The business concept of Navia is concise: healthy ingredients for sugar reduction, while our EUREBA line focus is tasty and healthy solution for sugar and calorie reduction,” wher sugar is exchanged “one-to one” with our solutions. “The Navia launch is based on the positive reaction from leading ingredient manufactures in Europe and Asia who supplied their ingredients to our EUREBA solution development, says Dahlgren. We have built a strong relationship with these suppliers and their ingredients are tested and evaluated in our EUREBA solutions design with proof of concepts.”