Tate & Lyle joins forces with BioHarvest Sciences to develop the next generation of sweeteners
This week Tate & Lyle, maker of sweeteners including Splenda® Sucralose, TASTEVA® Stevia and DOLCIA PRIMA® Allulose, announced a partnership with BioHarvest Sciences, a pioneer in the field of sustainable plant solutions, to deliver the next generation of sweeteners for application in beverages, snacks and confectionery products. Will consumers finally be rewarded with the Holy Grail of sweeteners they have been clamoring for?
The combination of Tate & Lyle’s 100+ years of sweetener expertise and BioHarvest’s ability to deliver unique plant-based benefits signals the next phase in bringing low-/no-calorie sweeteners (LNCS) to market that not only provide exceptional taste, but also the desired natural and sustainable products.
Abigail Storms, Senior Vice President, Global Sweetener and Fibre Platform at Tate & Lyle, shared with me: “Our goal is to provide our customers with the latest innovation, and to truly be the pioneers in sugar reduction. Our partnership with BioHarvest is testament to that. By collaborating with innovators like BioHarvest we are very much at the center of the Future of Food. We believe one of our strengths is in working with partners, bringing the best of both, to enable our customers to better serve their consumers.”
Ilan Sobel, CEO of BioHarvest Sciences, added, “BioHarvest’s Botanical Synthesis is the sustainable industrial process technology that consistently and economically produces the most potent molecules from plants. This partnership unleashes the revolutionary potential of this technology. The vast analytic tools and sensory optimization capabilities of Tate & Lyle combined with BioHarvest’s 18 years of expertise in plant cell biology will be used to create healthier products without compromising the taste of foods and beverages, whilst preserving the planet for generations to come.”
The Long Search For The Ideal Sweetener
Over the past 5 decades, the U.S. sweeteners market has undergone several transformations in delivering better taste for consumers. In 1983, I had a front row seat as a group brand director at The Coca-Cola Company when Diet Coke was introduced with aspartame, which dramatically improved taste and catapulted sales of low- and no-calorie beverages. Since then, new sweeteners have been ushered in which improved heat stability. Eventually, more “natural” sweeteners like Stevia were launched.
The global market for non-sugar sweeteners is expected to grow to over $408 billion by 2032 according to Innova Market Insights. However, a study on sweeteners reported here, titled Moving Towards Healthier Eating Habits: Why Low- and No-Calorie Sweeteners Play a Critical Role, noted that there remains a huge upside opportunity for LNCS as only 8% of sweetened items contain LNCS only, with an additional 5% consisting of a combination of LNCS and sugars. With Americans still exhibiting high rates of obesity, added sugars under the microscope, and consumers demanding better-for-you foods and beverages, healthier LNCS are poised for strong growth.
What Next Generation Sweeteners Look Like
The expected breakthrough coming from the Tate & Lyle/BioHarvest collaboration is that there is the potential for a sweetener that can deliver the combination of benefits that consumers have been yearning for: taste, plant-based and sustainable. Specifically:
- Taste. Study after study confirms that the number 1 reason consumers prefer to purchase foods and beverages is taste. A Georgetown University study titled The Power of Portions published in March 2024 highlighted that 97% of consumers said that taste was the top factor when making decisions about preparing food to eat. As cited above, while progress has been made over the past 5 decades in improving the taste of LNCS, there is still work to do. According to a 2023 study by the International Food Information Council (IFIC), among those who rarely or never consume LNCS, not liking the taste is the top reason for avoiding them. BioHarvest’s botanical synthesis process technology is capable of consistently controlling the ratio of “sweet” molecules to the “bitter” ones, thus mitigating the longstanding problems with bitterness and aftertaste in sweeteners.
- Plant-based. According to IFIC, LNCS consumers seek out plant-derived sweeteners (such as Stevia and monk fruit sweeteners) that are referred to as “natural” twice as frequently compared to those mentioned as “artificial” (44% vs. 21%). These “natural” sweeteners were also perceived as the safest to consume. Given the plant-based nature of BioHarvest’s technology along with the fact that it is non-GMO, sweeteners derived from this partnership will be aligned with consumers’ increasing demand for cleaner and better-for-you ingredients.
- Sustainable: According to a survey conducted by Sodexo’s International Sustainable Food Barometer, 72% of Americans describe the need for a more sustainable way of eating as urgent and most (66%) also had a positive perception of sustainable food. BioHarvest’s technology is based on capturing the benefits of plants consistently and repeatably; that is, its technology is able to capture the botanical advantages from a limited number of plants and replicate it through its proprietary production process. This means that it will no longer be necessary to destroy thousands of acres to meet demand for plant-based foods and beverages. In addition, significant reductions in water and fertilizer use would be realized.
The search for the Holy Grail of sweeteners has been going on for decades. I am hopeful that this collaboration of BioHarvest’s proprietary science plus Tate & Lyle’s ingredient expertise will yield new sweeteners that deliver the better-for-you benefits that consumers are seeking without compromising their enjoyment of their favorite foods and beverages. I’m keeping my fingers crossed.
