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Introducing Ingredients in Focus, Food Dive’s bite-size column highlighting interesting developments in the ingredients sector.

Ingredients giant Ingredion this week launched its PureCircle brand’s Clean Taste Solubility Solution, a drop-in stevia sweetener. 

The product is a “first of its kind,” the company said, and aims to mimic sugar without the need for any additives in the manufacturing process.” 

Ingredion went through a global panel of sensory testing to see if the natural sweetener lived up to the taste of products like sucralose, aspartame, acesulfame potassium and other stevia ingredients.

“The taste is significantly better than other stevias,” said Nate Yates, CEO of PureCircle, in an interview with Food Dive, “that was a bit by luck — we were really looking to tackle the challenge of solubility.” 

Ingredion’s PureCircle brand has been in the development phase of the ingredient for the last few years, said Yates. It comes from a new molecule found in the stevia plant, so the company had to go through some regulatory hurdles before bringing it to market. 

Yates said the ingredient has gone through the standard FDA Generally Recognized as Safe requirement — a common procedure for all food additives in the U.S. market, and that it will now target geographies like Europe as well. 

“A lot of other players in the ingredients space are trying to tackle solubility with different approaches, and often it's using additives or other products that are found to enable that solubility. Whereas this is a pure stevia product, it's the first on the market that can achieve solubility without other enhancement products,” said Yates. 

More consumers are taking an active role in their health and wellness with over two-thirds of global consumers willing to pay more for sugar reduction claims on the product they purchase, according to Ingredion’s 2023 proprietary consumer research. 

Additionally, 46% of consumers say that sugar is the number one ingredient they are reducing in their diet, per a 2023 Statista survey. 

PureCircle’s Clean Taste Solubility Solution is a zero-calorie product, and enables a deeper sugar reduction in food products, said Yates. 

The CEO also said the company is currently discussing with target customers how to apply the ingredient to products on the market.