Moving forward with stevia

7 July 2011 – Wild is promoting the broader use of stevia after the announcement by the Standing Committee of the European Commission to recommend approval of high purity stevia for use as a food ingredient throughout the EU.

“Wild has developed a comprehensive range of proprietary taste optimising solutions for stevia applications,” states Michael Ponder, CEO of Wild Flavors. “These systems address mouthfeel, masking, sweet enhancement, and blocking of bitterness that improve the taste profile of foods and beverages containing stevia. By rounding out the flavor profiles and masking the stevia taste profile issues, these ingredients and blends improve the finished product while enhancing stevia’s sweetening properties.”

The solutions do not contain sugar alcohols, which have a cooling sensation, can be difficult to dissolve and have a high cost in use in many applications.

Greg Horn, senior director of Sweetening Solutions for Wild comments, “A key benefit of Wild’s taste optimising solutions is that they are labelled as ‘natural flavours’. Using a trained sensory panel for stevia tasting, these unique modification systems were developed as platforms that are used and specialised for different applications and levels of Reb-A in stevia. This approach enables customers to select the best sweetening system for their unique product and cost objectives.”