While full EU approval for stevia sweeteners is still dependent on a scientific opinion from the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA), France has taken advantage of window that allows individual member states to approve ingredients for a limited two year period.
The approval, published yesterday in Frances official journal, has been hotly anticipated by the industry since AFSSA, the French food agency, issued a positive safety opinion earlier this year.
The application for France was made by Greensweet. General manager Joël Perret told FoodNavigator.com: This is very good news. It is the first opening for this type of ingredient in the EU market.
The global sweetener market for food use was valued at US$1.83bn in 2007 by Leatherhead Food International. The intense sweeteners market is dominated by aspartame and, to a lesser extent, sucralose. However interest in food ingredients from natural sources has led some to consider that the stevia plant could provide the holy grail of sweeteners.
Reb A is one of the major steviol glycosides found in the leaf of the Stevia rebaudiana plant. It is 300 times sweeter than sugar but has no calories, making it an attractive option for manufacturers catering to the market for foods and beverages with reduced, low or no sugar.
Activity anticipated
Based on enquiries so far Perret said there is the potential for hundreds of tonnes of Reb A to be used in products marketed in France in the coming months.
Manufacturers have already done considerable work on testing out potential uses. Now they will turn their attention to marketing and launches C but the first launches could be very fast in some cases.
Angus Flood, head of international marketing at Reb A supplier PureCircle, agreed; he said early adopters could have products on the market by the end of 2009.
According to Flood much of the early activity looks to be in the reformulation of products away from other sweeteners. Such a strategy would be a less risky way to enter the market than by launching a brand new product.
In the US, where Cargill and Whole Earth Sweetener Company, a subsidiary of Merisant, received the first FDA generally recognised as safe (GRAS) notifications for Reb A 97 per cent sweeteners last December, a small number of beverage products have come to market. These are mostly niche brands within big companies broader beverage offerings, with which firms are testing the market before taking the plunge.