European industrial biotechnology specialist BRAIN Biotech has teamed up with Bonumose to bring the rare sugars expert’s sweetener tagatose to market globally.
Announcing they have reached initial project milestones as part of their strategic collaboration, the companies aim to improve the performance of several enzymes that catalyze cascade reactions in the continuous production of low-calorie, ultra-low-glycemic, naturally occurring sweeteners.
Tagatose has attracted attention as a sweetener. But despite its health advantages over sugar, tagatose cost-effective production remains a roadblock.
Bonumose has developed a process using cornstarch instead of lactose from milk that could potentially lower production costs significantly by 80 percent (to around $3/kg).
The company uses its proprietary enzymatic technology platform to convert abundant plant-based feedstocks to rare sugars via three patented breakthroughs: irreversible enzymatic reactions; low cost and globally abundant starch feedstocks; and continuous production processes with standard HFCS/sugar equipment.
It said the tie-up with Germany\u2019s BRAIN Biotech will make its operation more cost efficient.
The company uses multiple enzymes within the synthesis cascades and BRAIN Biotech is optimizing several of these enzymes using enzyme engineering.
Bonumose has developed a patented process for producing both tagatose and allulose (not yet approved for use in the EU) which eliminates several processing steps and significantly increases yields during the production process.
Patrick Lorenz, Vice President, Strategic Initiatives BioScience at BRAIN Biotech said:BRAIN Biotech enzyme technology suite has proven once again to deliver on a customer’s challenging protein engineering targets. Based on rational structure- and sequence-guided design we improved individual enzymes and their cumulative performance in cascades to better match production process requirements. The ultimate aim is making production of Bonumoses beneficial rare sugars even more cost efficient.
According to Bonmuose, Tagatose is suitable for all beverages, including but not limited to: soft drinks, fruit juices, tea, coffee, dairy-based drinks, and non-dairy alternatives to dairy. It also blends well with stevia and other high-intensity sweeteners to balance out the sweetness onset and lingering, overcome bitterness, and add mouthfeel.
Ed Rogers, Co-founder, and CEO at Bonumose, said: “Tagatose and allulose have 92 percent and 70 percent of the sucrose but only 38 percent and 10 percent of the calories. Our mission is to produce them in a low-cost production process from commodity carbohydrates. Our development collaborator Brain Biotech has passed the third milestone in the collaboration and thanks to their enzyme engineering, analytics, and enzyme assay expertise we are on track and confident to meet our development objectives.”
Sweeteners Market
The artificial sweetener is a major additive in food & beverage products. In food & beverage, artificial sweetener is mainly classified into aspartame, acesulfame, saccharin, sucralose, cylamate, and others. It provides a sweet taste and low calories to the products turning them into sugar-free products.
Research Methodology
The artificial sweetener market has been analyzed by utilizing the optimum combination of secondary sources and in-house methodology along with an irreplaceable blend of primary insights. The real-time assessment of the market is an integral part of our market sizing and forecasting methodology. Our industry experts and panel of primary participants have helped in compiling relevant aspects with realistic parametric estimations for a comprehensive study. The participation share of different categories of primary participants is given below:
Key Market Insights
Artificial sweetener is widely utilized in the food & beverages industry in various sugar-free soda, chewing gums, chocolates, ice cream, baked goods, and others. It imparts much more sweetness in these products than sugar. It also keeps the calories low helping the consumers to consume these products without feeling guilty about putting on. The food & beverage segment is growing fast as the demand for sugar-free beverages and sugar-free eatables is increasing owing to the spreading of awareness related to healthy eating and growing health concerns.
Currently, Asia Pacific dominates the market and is expected to grow potentially during the forecast period due to intense demand from various application segments and increasing number of diabetic and obese people. North America is likely to remain as a key region owing to the significant contribution from the US. Few of the prominent key players in the global artificial sweetener market are Cargill, ROQUETTE, AJINOMOTO, Ingredion, and Hermes Sweeteners.
