Stevia’s organic potential is not limited, claims PureCircle

11-May-2009 - Last updated on 12-May-2009 at 12:14 GMT

Major Reb A supplier PureCircle has disputed recent suggestions that stevia’s potential for use in organic foods could be limited, although it agrees that certification poses problems.

In a recent report, Euromonitor International’s head of health and wellness Ewa Hudson questioned whether Reb A can satisfy strict organic demands – from both certification bodies as well as consumers – because of its processed nature and diversified cultivation. An article on this perspective can be found here.

But PureCircle has contested this view, saying that the industry is currently in discussion with organic certifiers around the world to gain ‘approved non-organic status’ for Reb A. This means that the sweetener could be used in organic products without having to gain full organic certification.

Angus Flood, head of international marketing at PureCircle, told FoodNavigator-USA.com: “We work with small level farmers who can’t necessarily afford the pesticides. It’s good that stevia is very hardy to grow because in many cases you don’t need them. But it’s not possible to provide certification when we work with over 14,000 farmers.”

Organic thresholds

In the US, a food must contain at least 95 percent organic ingredients to be labeled organic and carry the USDA’s organic stamp. Any other ingredients also have to be approved, but they must either be unavailable organically or not able to be certified as such. Similar thresholds exist with different certification bodies around the world.

“The majority of certifiers are in the 90 to 95 percent range,” said Flood. “…Salt, for example, is not certifiable.”

He said that the large number of farmers providing the company’s stevia supply means that most of its Reb A will not be certified organic, but added: “We do have organic plantations and we do have organic Reb A, but it’s not for the large beverage makers like PepsiCo. We can’t do that volume. But we will be able to supply that to the organic industry on a small scale.”

‘Naturally refined’

Apart from potential problems stemming from stevia’s diversified cultivation, the Euromonitor report also questioned the refining process for obtaining Reb A.

Hudson said: “The highly refined stevia-based extracts pushed by industry frontrunners are unlikely to satisfy the requirements of either the discerning organic consumer or the very stringent organic certification bodies.”

However, Flood said that while Reb A is a refined extract, the crude extract – what is left over after plant fibers and water have been removed – is naturally refined using ethanol.

“It doesn’t follow that small is beautiful and big is bad,” he said. “Large scale is the consistent, stable, reliable way. Every batch has to be the same, it has to be safe and it has to be natural…We think we can clear a bit of confusion because we are actually doing it.”

The number of companies looking to reformulate or release new products using Reb A, the natural high-intensity sweetener from the leaves of the stevia plant, has boomed since the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) issued letters of no objection that it was generally recognized as safe (GRAS) in December.