FOOD AND COSMETICS

STEVIA

Stevia (Stevia rebaudiana), a leafy plant characterized by its sweet taste, has its origins as a traditional food and medicinal ingredient of indigenous Guarani peoples in Paraguay and Brazil. Because of its rapidly-growing use as a zero-calorie natural sweetener, global demand for Stevia is experiencing explosive growth. The leaves of Stevia contain sweet-tasting compounds, the Steviol glycosides (stevioside and rebaudiosides A, C, F, M, D, and  X) in small quantities. These compounds can have up to 350 times the sweetness of sugar.

Most of the world’s stevia leaf is chemically processed into steviol glycosides through a process, which is multi-step, complex,  cost-intensive, and  looks more like chemistry than "natural sweetness". Because of the smaller quantities of Steviol glycosides per leaf, large harvests of plant material are required to extract commercially useful amounts.

In summary, Steviol glycosides open up new options for product development as zero-calorie, high-intensity sweeteners. When produced in microbial cell factories, the commercial production of Steviol glycosides helps significantly in reduction of carbon footprint. Other originally plant-based products, produced with specially "engineered" GM yeasts, are already approved as "novel foods" of "natural origin" in the EU and are on the market (e.g. Resveratrol).