Bonumose: Novel tech paves way for mass market adoption of rare sugars allulose, tagatose
Bonumose – a Virginia-based startup with patented technology it claims could enable the mass market adoption of rare sugars – recently raised a Series B round led by Hershey and sugar refining giant ASR Group, to support commercial production of allulose and tagatose next year. (Pic: GettyImages-CherriesJD)
Right now, firms manufacturing allulose on a commercial scale deploy a multi-step process that takes them from corn starch to maltodextrin, to glucose, to fructose, which is then converted into allulose using enzymes, a “low-yield process with multiple separation and purification steps.”
Bonumose also starts with starch, but has enzymes that can convert the maltodextrin directly to allulose, with a very high yield, a potential game-changer in the market, says co-founder and CEO Ed Rogers.
“Our process for tagatose also starts with starch and then maltodextrin and we can go straight to tagatose. At a very large scale, we could probably make it even more efficiently than high fructose corn syrup.”