Archer Daniels Midland Company (ADM) is bringing two new sweetener brands, SweetRight stevia and VerySweet monk fruit, to the market. These two new additions to the ADM portfolio, sourced through ADM’s partnership with GLG Life Tech Corporation, offer food and beverage product developers all the benefits of stevia and monk fruit, as well as access to ADM’s extensive ingredient portfolio, formulations expertise and blending capabilities. ADM’s global distribution network provides the added assurance that these ingredients are readily available.

“As consumers continue to look for great-tasting, healthier, lower-calorie products, we are pleased to meet formulator’s needs by offering a range of sweetener solutions that help them meet consumer demand,” said Rodney Schanefelt, director, Sugar and High Potency Sweeteners, ADM.

“This expansion of our high-potency sweetener portfolio will help meet the ever-growing demand for natural, lower calorie, ‘no added sugars’ foods and beverages. We are committed to providing food and beverage formulators with ideas and solutions to address the taste, cost, calories and labeling preferences of today’s consumers.”

Click to EnlargeAccording to Innova Market Insights data, new launches of products using monk fruit as a natural sweetener have risen 3% from 2015 to 2016 in the juice and juice drinks category. Recent innovations with monk fruit include a wide range of Chobani yogurt products in the US, including Simply 100 Blended Non-Fat Greek Yogurt Raspberry Lemon, which contains both stevia and monk fruit. The products contain a "no artificial sweeteners" sweeteners claim and are noted to contain "75% less sugar than regular yogurt."

SweetRight and VerySweet join ADM’s VivaSweet sucralose, the first high-intensity, zero-calorie sweetener in ADM’s portfolio. VivaSweet is suitable for use in virtually any food or beverage application and offers a clean, sweet taste, as well as process and shelf stability.  
 
“Now, with SweetRight stevia, VerySweet monk fruit and VivaSweet sucralose available from one global source, formulators have access to even more sweetener options from ADM as they create products to meet the ever-evolving tastes and preferences of today’s consumers,” Schanefelt added. 
 
SweetRight stevia, sourced from the stevia leaf, is clean-label friendly and provides a high quality of sweetness, making it ideal to help reduce sugar while still maintaining desirable taste and sweetness. SweetRight offers a range of stevia ingredients extracted from the stevia leaf using a proprietary process. SweetRight stevia is up to 250 times as sweet as sugar and offers a clean-label, GRAS (Generally Recognized as Safe), non-GMO, and plant-based sweetener solution. It blends well with other sweeteners, is process and shelf-stable, and is available in three forms—RA, RA granular, and EMS Enzymatically Modified Stevia—to meet a variety of needs.  
 
VerySweet monk fruit has a delicious sweet taste without bitterness, making it an ideal choice for reducing sugar in a wide range of food and beverage products. VerySweet is sourced from the luo han fruit and is up to 200 times as sweet as sugar. This low calorie, GRAS sweetener solution may be used alone, blended or as part of a complete sweetening system.

Schanefelt told FoodIngredientsFirst: “Stevia and Monk Fruit are very different from a farming point of view.  They require completely different agricultural production approaches, so the costs are not really directly comparable.”

“Stevia is grown globally with limited issues, but climate, temperature and soil conditions can all impact stevia farm gate yields.”

“Monk Fruit has a fairly limited growing area. It’s currently only grown in Southeastern China,” he says.