Full Guidance of Stevioside, A Natural sweetener

Stevioside, an extremely sweet non-sugar substance extracted from the herb Stevia rebaudiana of the Asteraceae family, can be 250 to 450 times sweeter than sucrose, while its calorie is only 1/300 of sucrose, and its taste is very close to that of sucrose. It is the third natural sweetener with great development value and health function approved by China's Health and Welfare Commission, following sugar cane and beet sugar, and is internationally known as "the third source of sugar in the world".

Feature

Stevioside, as a natural sweetener with excellent performance, has the following characteristics.

①High sweetness and low calorie. The sweetness is 200 to 350 times that of sucrose, the calorie is only 1/300 of sucrose, and the taste is similar to that of sucrose.

②Good solubility. It has good solubility in alcohol and water, and good taste with various sweetness and sugar, so it is suitable to be added in many kinds of food.

③Good stability. It is stable under extreme heat, light and pH conditions, and basically does not change during the processing and production of beverages and foods, and can maintain stable quality when stored in a dry state.

④High safety. Stevioside has been consumed in South America for hundreds of years, and modern toxicology experiments show that it is not carcinogenic, teratogenic and mutagenic; it is not easily used by microorganisms, and long-term intake will not lead to dental caries.

Flavor and technology improvement

While stevia varieties are constantly being cultivated and updated, Stevioside related products are also being developed rapidly. The limitations of the first generation products in application are mainly reflected in the obvious delay in sweetness, slightly weaker sweetness intensity and more obvious after-sweetness, which makes it difficult to realize the relative sweetness of replacing more than 8% sucrose by using alone. RA, the highest selling product, also has a certain degree of post-bitterness, and even in high purity, it presents a sweet with bitter taste quality, so the first generation stevioside must be used with other sweeteners or sugars. With the continuous development of technology, it was found that RD exhibited a very low post-bitter taste quality and significantly enhanced sweet taste quality compared to other Stevioside. It has also been found that RM, which is present in very small amounts in leaves, has a very slight bitter aftertaste and higher sweetness intensity, and is a Stevioside with great potential. after 2018, high levels of RD and RM, which are super close to sucrose in taste, are hot spots sought by the market, but their market share is limited by low quantities and high prices.

It is generally believed that the products of steviol with various types of sugar groups (such as glucosyl, galactosyl, or fructosyl) attached at the C13 position can exhibit better taste quality and sweetness, so improving the sweetness properties of Stevioside can be achieved by enzymatic transglycosylation reactions to change the structural composition of Stevioside. With the continuous advancement and depth of the research on enzyme modification technology, a new generation product, enzyme modified stevioside, has been approved by the State Health and Welfare Commission in 2016, Notice No. 8, which approved the formulation of glucosyl stevioside (enzyme modified stevioside) into flavors for food, which can be used in various foods. Its related products have greatly improved in terms of starting sweetness, post-bitterness, aftertaste, proximity to sucrose sweetness and the proportion of substituted sucrose, etc. It can also be used as a flavor enhancer with good flavor modification properties and sweetness intensity that can be synergistic with quality. Many performance characteristics make it can be well used in the food industry, and the advantages of its application in the beverage industry are more prominent.

Stevioside in the beverage industry

Prior to 2011, sachets (Tabletop) were the most used product of RA in the United States, and with the widespread use of RA in bottled water, the beverage industry became its second largest market. The market for stevioside gradually opened up after the product was approved in the EU. In France and the United Kingdom, Sprite's traditional formula was retooled to include RA, and Coca-Cola launched a green cola in 2014 and a stevia cola in 2018 that replaced all white sugar.

The development and application of stevioside products have developed more rapidly in recent years. In addition to the world beverage giants Coca-Cola, PepsiCo, Nestle, etc., domestic beverage pioneers such as Master Kong, Nongfu Shanquan, and the rising star Yuanqi Forest are also accelerating the development and launch of new products applying stevioside.

According to Innova data, as shown in Figure 2, the top 3 new products using stevioside worldwide in 2019 are in Western Europe, North America and Asia, with the number of new products in Western Europe reaching 1,717; the number of new products in Latin America has a 5-year CAGR of 46%, and the number of new products in Eastern Europe, the Middle East and Australia has a 5-year CAGR of over 30%, which has great room for development. The application of stevioside in Africa is relatively slow to develop.

As we all know, iced tea and carbonic acid are the top two consumer beverages in the world and Asia, including China. According to Innova, as shown in Figure 3, the number of new iced tea products containing stevioside will reach 250 in 2019, nearly twice as many as in 2015. The number of new products in the sports drink category is growing by leaps and bounds, from 15 in 2015 to 94 in 2019, with a five-year compound annual growth rate of 44%.

Growth prospects

According to Toluna Research Network, consumer awareness of Stevioside in the U.S. has climbed rapidly from 35% in 2009 to 75% in 2019; a 2015 survey of Chinese consumers (the group that knows about natural sweeteners) found that their positive and neutral awareness of Stevioside  reached 78%, comparable to 74% for glucose and 82% for fruit juice concentrate, and slightly lower than 85% for rooibos. As global consumption escalates and health problems caused by sugar intake become more serious, the demand for natural sweeteners is increasing year by year due to health concerns and demand for sugar-reduced foods. In addition, the good feedback from the market will promote the research and development of Stevioside products, and with its various physiological functions, the prospect of Stevioside will become better and better, and the market will become wider and wider.

With the establishment of the national strategy of "Healthy China", sugar reduction has become the consensus of China's food industry. China is the main producer of Stevioside in the world. In the context of the new development opportunity for China's health food industry, further research on the screening and improvement of stevia varieties based on the optimization of Stevioside' sweet taste quality, the development of highly bioactive and high-quality Stevioside production processes, and the continuous improvement of consumer awareness will accelerate the application and development of Stevioside in the health food industry. 

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