Monk fruit, found in the valleys and foothills of southern China, grows on the vine and is about the size of an orange or large lemon. In a field of natural diet sweeteners struggling to earn consumer acceptance, it is arguably the flavor of the month.
Whether it becomes something more will depend on whether it can jump from its limited growing area into the strategic plans of giant food and beverage companies.
London-based Tate & Lyle, one of the world’s largest sweetener companies, is devoting resources to commercializing monk fruit under the brand name Purefruit. Extract of monk fruit, also known as luo han guo, was designated “generally recognized as safe” by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration last year, a step that crystallized Tate & Lyle’s interest.
American consumers increasingly are looking to natural sweeteners as low-calorie options, and more are willing to try exotic ingredients such as luo han guo. Sweetener companies have tested a variety of such sweeteners and blends in recent years.
“We identified a gap in the natural, high-potency space,” said Michael Harrison, senior vice president at Tate & Lyle. “Monk fruit extract fills that gap nicely.”
Legend has it that monk fruit was named after Buddhist monks who first cultivated it nearly 800 years ago. Today, processors extract the natural sweetness of the mogroside-5 molecule from monk fruit by crushing the fruit and infusing it with hot water.
Beverage companies acknowledge there may not be a single solution to the search for a natural, high-potency sweetener to displace high-fructose corn syrup. If a natural sweetener is attracting attention, it is stevia, an herb grown and used as a tea in South America for centuries and approved by the FDA in late 2008.
Stevia has appeared in a range of noncarbonated drinks such as PepsiCo’s SoBe Lifewater and Trop50 juice, and Coca-Cola’s Sprite Green, Vitaminwater Zero, Powerade Play and other beverages. Yet it has not succeeded in colas, one of the largest beverage categories in the U.S.
“The holy grail seems to be as far out of reach as it was a couple of years ago,” said John Sicher, editor of trade journal Beverage Digest. “A diet, natural sweetener that tastes as good as sugar and works in carbonated soft drinks is still on or over the horizon.”
Monk fruit, which has appeared in cereals, table-top sweeteners, whey protein drinks and probiotic drink mixes, will have to overcome skepticism if it is to go mainstream.
Cargill, the giant Minneapolis-based conglomerate, looked into monk fruit years ago but was dissuaded by the difficulties of growing the crop on a large scale. Cargill decided not to pursue it because of limitations on the crop and questions about the ability to get it to a significant scale, spokeswoman Ann Tucker said.
Cargill has become the world’s largest provider of stevia sweetener. It has been involved in 30 launches of stevia-sweetened foods and beverages since the introduction of its Truvia brand in 2008.
Meanwhile, monk fruit is hard to find among the offerings of big drinks companies. Coca-Cola Co., for example, uses luo han guo extract only in a tea in Vietnam. Even in that product, the extract does not function as a sweetener.
Coca-Cola executives say they are checking out all available sweetener options. But they sound more excited about stevia than about monk fruit.
Coca-Cola now sells more than two dozen stevia-sweetened products in six countries: Argentina, Japan, Turkey, Canada, France and the U.S. It just launched three new flavors of stevia-sweetened Vitaminwater Zero and this weekend introduced three new versions of Cascal, a soda designed in France and made with a slow malt fermentation method.
“I think there’s strong potential behind this ingredient,” said Andrea Young, Coca-Cola’s global marketing director for new growth platforms. “You’ll see new products coming.”
However, stevia has not become the one-stop solution for soft drinks companies. David Thomas, executive vice president for research and development at Dr Pepper Snapple, said stevia’s challenges include cost, a taste some have described as licorice or metallic in colas, and a tendency to stop sweetening drinks after a certain amount.
“Stevia was the buzz a few years ago,” Thomas told a Wall Street conference sponsored by Beverage Digest. “It’s definitely a tool in the toolbox, and it’s a great ingredient to have. That being said, there are some challenges.”
George Pugh, Coca-Cola’s senior manager for scientific and regulatory affairs, said monk fruit will have to clear the same obstacles that stevia has before it can reach commercial scale. That entails building awareness and acceptance among consumers and gaining regulatory approvals. “You have some places that have heard about monk fruit, but most of the world hasn’t,” he said.
Executives at Tate & Lyle stress that monk fruit is meant to complement stevia, not replace it. One advantage for the Chinese sweetener is the word “fruit.” In focus groups, executives wanted to make sure consumers, especially mothers, didn’t reject the unfamiliar ingredient with the strange name. The key group reacted well.
“ ‘Fruit’ is a word that resonates with consumers, particularly with moms,” Harrison said. “Mothers respond very positively to that word ‘fruit’ on the ingredient deck. Fruit telegraphs a key simple and natural message to them: It’s natural, it’s good-tasting, it’s wholesome.”
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