PureCircle is the leading producer and innovator of great-tasting stevia sweeteners for the global beverage and food industry. PureCircle, business to producing the best, natural origin, zero-calorie sweetener made from Starleaf stevia plants.
Navneet Singh Head of the South East Asia Region, PureCircle Group, and will be based in PureCircle’s India and South Asia office. India is an important market for PureCircle, as the company aims to make stevia the next mass natural sweetener in the country by strengthening its core leadership.
With over 25 years of experience in the food and beverage industry, he will provide proven leadership over the Asia team. He has managed global businesses, sales, marketing and product development across Asia, Europe and the United States.
Singh had been recently associated with Firmenich, one of the world’s largest privately-owned fragrance and flavour companies, as vice-president, key global accounts, Greater Asia.
Commenting on this appointment, Maga Malsagov, chief executive officer, PureCircle, said, “Singh has shown exceptional knowledge of the food and beverage industry as well as the India and Asia markets.”
PureCircle is working with Indian farmers with stevia innovation to grow incomes, and support the country in addressing its sugar reduction goals, while concurrently reducing the rising graph of non-communicable diseases.
From emerging brands to established Indian and multinational companies, PureCircle is helping the entire food and beverage industry in its journey of calorie reduction and making stevia an integral part of the Indian diet. Mr. Navneet Singh Head of the South East Asia Region, PureCircle Group in an email interaction with Adil Abbas Naqvi Future Today Media Group, reveals the current scenario in the Indian market and outlook for his company.Excerpts.
Q. Tell us something about the organization?
PureCircle is the world’s leading producer of high-purity stevia ingredients for the global food and beverage industry and a force for good in the world. Its mission is to encourage healthier diets around the world through the supply of natural ingredients to the global food and beverage industry. The company is leading the global expansion of stevia as the next mass volume, natural-origin sweetener. Working with partners, customers, and suppliers, the company is focused on what is needed to make this vision a reality: delivering great taste, ensuring consumer acceptance, fostering ingredient advocacy and delivering scaled supply in a responsible, sustainable manner.
PureCircle has offices around the world with the global headquarters in Chicago, Illinois. PureCircle has nearly 400 patents and patents pending covering its proprietary stevia technology.PureCircle works with local farming communities across the world including in India, the United States, Paraguay, Africa and China.
In India, stevia is also known as MeethiTulsi in Hindi, SeeniTulsi in Tamil, MadhuParani in Marathi and Madhu Patra in Sanskrit. India already has been growing stevia for Ayurvedic and medicinal purposes for decades. PureCircle has brought the most sought after stevia leaf varieties to India to test various cultivars in soil under Indian environment and then propagate them. We are in India for long term and are hopeful that India will be a great leaf base for PureCircle in coming years.
PureCircle formally entered India last year with plans to build a robust infrastructure over the next five years. India is one of the last major markets to have approved high purity stevia leaf extract as a sweetener, opening the doors for PureCircle’s investment. We are confident that our innovative high purity stevia ingredients, including Reb M, are going to revolutionise the Indian F&B sector’s efforts to moderate sugar naturally for Indian consumers without compromising with the great taste.
Q. What makes PureCircle different from competitors?
PureCircle has made significant investments into the Art and Science of making great-tasting stevia. From seed to leaf to sweetener, PureCircle is nurturing taste breakthroughs through every step of the stevia journey.We have dedicated ourselves to understand the stevia leaf like no other organization. The stevia leaf contains more than 40 types of steviol glycosides or molecules, each with its own peculiarities and none of the calories compared to sugar. Because of our innovation leadership, we have identified which of these molecules taste closest to sugar and how they perform in different matrixes singularly or in combinations to enable B2B companies to develop great tasting naturally sweetened products.
Great taste starts with the best stevia leaf varieties and ingredients. Our passion is great-tasting, zero-calorie ingredients from the stevia plant. We begin with the best tasting stevia variety – our Starleaf™ variety has over 20x more of the best-tasting, most sugar-like molecules including Reb M compared to the conventional variety. We make sure it’s nurtured in the right conditions by the farmers who know the plant best, turning their work into the best-tasting, highest-quality stevia ingredients. Working with PureCircle has several distinct advantages compared to competitor sweetener companies.
PureCircle has a world class supply chain. Our supply chain is vertically integrated from seedling to finished product. We have farming partnerships all over the world for a consistent supply of the best-tasting stevia leaf ingredients. We practice sustainable methods throughout our entire supply chain, and we have the largest stevia manufacturing capabilities in the world.
We continue to be pioneers as it comes to stevia ingredients and providing new ingredient blends. We are able to scale Reb M for use by global brands. PureCircle is continuously launching new stevia platforms like antioxidants, fibers and proteins.
PureCircle has the most formulation expertise in the industry with a deep knowledge of all things stevia. We are able to work across a wide range of applications and sugar reduction levels depending on a company’s need. PureCircle possess a suite of technical services from sensory to custom ingredients to launch the best-tasting products containing stevia leaf sweeteners.
Finally PureCircle is never complacent, we are continuously striving for new innovations with stevia leaf ingredients which is evident by our large patent portfolio which is integrated throughout our entire supply chain. We have mapped the stevia genome, and continue to lead the industry in working with regulatory authorities to make the best stevia leaf ingredients available to companies all over the world.
Q. What is the significance of sweetener in the food processing industry?
Sweeteners play a vital role in ensuring the taste success of a food and beverage product. The trick is to get the right curve of sweetness in the product, mastering the right moment when the sweetness is unlocked on the palate.
For a long time the sweetener market was dominated by sugar and artificial sweeteners. But now withthe growing global demand for clean label ingredients and concerns about obesity and diabetes, beverage and food companies are working responsibly to reduce sugar and calories in their products responding to both consumers and health and wellness advocates.
The concept of a natural sweetener with no calories and great tastes is highly appealing to consumers and brands alike. Today, roughly 20,000 products have been launched with stevia and it is the primary vehicle for sugar reduction being used by major established and upstart brands in getting to great taste with reduced calories typically associated with natural caloric sweeteners.
Q. What are the regulations and safety standards that you follow while manufacturing?
All major global regulatory organisations, across 65 countries, have approved the use of high-purity stevia leaf extracts in food and beverages. The safety of highly purified stevia extracts is supported by rigorous scientific research and evaluation necessary for an ingredient to be approved for use in foods and beverages today.
In order for an ingredient to be mainstream, it needs to be great tasting, safe, scalable and economically viable. We are the only company that truly is vertical from leaf development, extraction to purification. Cutting edge innovation as evidenced by more than 130 stevia-related granted patents and more than 250 patents pending globally, and decoding the genome of stevia leaf have allowed us to mine the insights related to great taste like no other.
Converting the intellectual property to commercial products is supported by an unmatched integrated supply chain that goes from leaf development to agronomic support for farming, to extraction and finally purification to end sweetener and flavour products. Because our business is global, we are increasingly diversifying our leaf, and today our leaf comes from four different continents. At the same time we are also increasing rapidly the yields of the best tasting molecules in our leaf through traditional cross breeding.
We have enabled our global network of labs in four continents to support product launches of thousands of products. With our flagship South Asia lab opened recently in Gurgaon, we can provide those technical inputs to B2B companies in this region to accelerate their product development. Lot of the common matrix will benefit from Sigma Solutions (Tabletop, Dairy, Beverages, and Sweets). If need be, we can also provide customized support through our South Asia Lab. This infrastructure is absolutely critical as stevia is not one molecule and different matrix has different taste challenges. The knowledge of decades of product development is now available in a new market like India, thanks to this lab.
Q. Your company is the leading manufacturer in sweetener. How do you maintain your position in an industry which is fast growing with new competitors?
At PureCircle, we have done in-depth research on stevia. PureCircle is only company that is able to innovate at all parts of the supply chain because of tight supply chain control. Because our batch size is very large (1 batch size = 300 MT of sugar sweetness), we can produce at high degree of consistency, safety and commercial viability. In fact there are many products with our portfolio that can enable parity at cost to natural caloric sweeteners today. Our agronomy program has guided us to grow our own proprietary stevia leaf variety called StarleafTM. Starleaf yields 20X times more novel sugar like glycosides, like Reb M, which are set to be the future of the industry. These sugar-like molecules produce our best tasting assortment of products which are unmatched in the industry to drive full calorie reduction with clean and rounded taste.
PureCircle is the leader in a growth business. Globally, stevia use is growing. New products launched globally with stevia posted a +27% increase in the first half of 2018 vs the comparable period in 2017, according to Mintel.
Being the global leader, customers rely on our innovation, supply chain and application expertise in accelerating product development. Our recently established South Asia lab in Gurgaon now offers a plethora of support from marketing insights, regulatory support to application support to enable customers to go from concept to launch quickly.
Even if you are a small, midsized corporation, we have the capability to support development of a stevia sweetened, lower calorie product through our network of distributors. In addition, we have a suite of allied services to support launches including marketing insights, collaterals, regulatory support and credible science based informational support from PureCircle Stevia institute (formerly Global Stevia Institute).
Q. What are the industrial trends in sweetener industry? What is the demand and scope of business in India?
Consumers globally and in India are demanding that they imbibe products that have ingredients which they can understand. They are sceptical of ingredients that sound like they are manufactured in a plant with no basis of natural origin. We are very excited about the South Asian market as Indian consumers in particular and South Asian consumers in general increasingly avail of the benefit of calorie reduction through natural ingredients and solutions. In this scenario, stevia has a wide appeal.
In a short span of time, we have ensured a double digit growth in India. Our commercial journey started with the establishment of our first South Asia Office and Lab in Gurgaon in early 2018. All deep reductions are now possible at great taste using PureCircle stevia leaf sweeteners. If our customers need further application support, we provide on bench lab work support which is also offered to B2B R&D teams to help develop their stevia sweetened formulations.
Q. What are the different kinds of sweetener and which one variety has the highest consumption with regards to its money value?
The stevia industry has evolved from crude extracts to Reb A to the more novel glycosides like Reb M which are most sugar-like in taste. PureCircle portfolio of products include natural Flavors and sweeteners. We have several sweeteners and flavours that can help get to small sugar reductions at great taste and costadvantage. Our portfoliofeatures a range of sweeteners which are well-suited for moderate to deep sugar reduction at cost parity.
Q. What are the current trends in the Asia-Pacific food ingredients sector?
We see clean labels, healthful products with different taste ingredients being really in trend. Within this, salt reduction, sugar reduction, fat reduction and high protein, vitamin and “healthy” ingredient infused products being specifically fast growing. We are starting to see flavoured waters growing rapidly globally. Plant based alternative milks instead of Dairy. Turmeric, Ashwagandha and Kombhucha instead of the newest citrus or berry flavours. Consumers are looking for a reason to consume a product and brand and many times it is associated with its health and wellness proposition.
Q. What are the visible trends emerging in the use and consumption pattern of Natural Sweetener in India?
Given the growing global concerns about obesity and diabetes, several beverage and food companies are working responsibly to reduce sugar and calories in their products, responding to both consumers and health and wellness advocates.
Our proprietary consumer insights show that amongst consumers who are aware of stevia, 83% have a very strong positive perception of stevia. This compares to 53% very strong positive perception for sugar, showing a real opportunity for formulations with stevia.
B2B companies also understand the macro trends within which they operate and these include afore stated consumer demand for “natural” but also increasing threat of governments and regulatory actions on fat, salt and sugar content and taxes and the decreasing perceptions amongst Indian consumers of artificial sweeteners and sugar.
Major MNC’s and increasingly mid to large Indian companies understand these global mega trends and are taking actions to address consumer demands and increasingly turning to stevia- which has no warning labels unlike artificial sweeteners-even in India to address some of their challenges.
There is considerable interest in developing stevia sweetened products and we have already seen some major launches in the country. Today, many marque brands in Carbonates, Flavoured Milk, Yogurt and Yogurt Drinks, Iced Tea, Syrup Drinks, Packaged Fruit Juice, Confectionary, Powdered Soft Drinks, TableTop, Ketchups, Cereals and several indulgence categories like Ice-creams also use stevia. The industry found easy success in beverage (Juices, enhanced waters, teas/coffee and carbonates) format at first but increasingly we have seen dairy with yogurts and milks being a huge growth area.
We are confident our innovative high purity stevia ingredients are tailored to Indian consumer tastes in beverage, traditional sweets, home cooking use, dairy are going to revolutionise the Indian F&B sector’s efforts to moderate sugar naturally for Indian consumers without compromising with the great taste.
Q. What are the challenges faced by you in regards to regulations, raw-material, and manpower? How do you overcome them?
Since its inception PureCircle has worked with various regulatory bodies in different countries to obtain approval for the use of stevia-based sweeteners in foods and beverages. Stevia is approved by all major safety and regulatory bodies worldwide including US FDA, EU EFSA, and FSSAI etc.
About four years after PureCircle’s engagement with regulatory authorities, a scientific panel on food additives at the Food Safety and Standards Authority of India (FSSAI) recommended the use of stevia. The food regulator gave the final go-ahead in November 2015. This has opened a plethora of categories that now can incorporate Stevia as a sweet source. India is certainly a very promising market for stevia because of our high standards for “sweet” both intensity and quality.
The current regime at FSSAI is also listening to various stake holders- consumers, industry, medical practitioners- while framing laws but it is important to also look ahead as to what may come down the wire based on global trends. Sugar, fat, salt are all under scrutiny across the globe. The regimes globally have adopted various practices from on pack detailed communication traffic light system or adding punitive cess or taxes on entire categories and/or sugar content. It is happening in developing and developed countries alike. In fact just a few days back, Sri Lanka imposed sugar taxes of 50 p for every gram of sugar in beverage, forcing many companies to react to the situation overnight. Those brands that had prepared for the possibility are in a better position to react faster with a naturally sweetened formulation.
Q. What is the future scenario and how do you look at the Indian market, say by 2020?
More than 20,000 products have been launched globally across all kinds of categories and reduction levels ranging from slight sugar reductions to 100% sugar reductions by small and major corporations. We can expect to see a similar trend of launches.
Our vision of stevia globally and in India is to mainstream it as the next mass consumption natural sweetener. We expect that by 2020, stevia acceptance by consumers, farmers, B2B makers and public health advocates as a sweetener of choice would be significantly greater than it is today.
Due to its natural and herbal origins, stevia with its no calories, is highly appealing to consumers. Proprietary consumer insights reveal more than 80% of Indian consumers would purchase a food or beverage sweetened with stevia. India has one of the highest diabetes incidences in the world with as many as 65 million people suffering from type-2 diabetes. Younger populations are increasingly over weight but they are also becoming increasingly conscious of what they eat. The trends of obesity and diabetes and accompanying NCD are not being ignored by health practitioners, government and responsible companies.
We expect by 2020, that major sugar reductions across categories in juices, carbonated drinks, Indian sweets, Chai’s, home cooking all are possible with stevia. In addition, we expect that stevia becomes an important arsenal in the hands of public health practitioners and consumers to drive down calorie consumption in their challenges with managing weight or diabetes. We also hope to see stevia as a crop grown in increasing volume within the country.
