PureCircle’s Latest Stevia Leaf Development Offers Significant Productivity Advantages

CHICAGO, Nov. 04, 2019 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- PureCircle (LSE: PURE), the world's leading producer and innovator of great-tasting stevia sweeteners for the global beverage and food industries, has developed and is now expanding use of a new stevia leaf variety which provides significant advantages compared to previous generations of stevia plants.

Carefully cultivated by PureCircle and successfully field-tested, this new stevia varietal yields greater quantities of our great-tasting next generation stevia ingredients. This breakthrough -- increasing the effective yield of PureCircle’s stevia plants -- enhances the company’s production efficiency, and even further improves its ability to deliver a sustainable supply of these next generation stevia leaf ingredients to food and beverage companies.

With that greater yield, this new stevia variety – the result of the company’s expertise in stevia innovation and agronomy -- provides further cost effectiveness as greater quantities of ingredients can be sourced from each leaf. PureCircle’s innovation strength has led to its securing 200 patents globally related to stevia.

PureCircle’s mission is to provide food and beverage companies even greater access to our non-GMO stevia ingredients cost effectively for them. That helps them offer their consumers expanded selections of healthy, low- and no-calories foods and beverages using our plant-based stevia ingredients. That democratizes – or spreads access to – healthy foods and beverages with less or no added sugar and sweetened with a natural, plant-based sweetener. That is good for the business of the food and beverage companies and for the health and wellness of their consumers.

This year, 20% of PureCircle’s stevia plants were comprised of this new variety, and the Company plans to switch 90% of its stevia crop to this variety in 2020.

All of PureCircle’s ingredients begin with the stevia plant. A sweetener is a “stevia sweetener” only if it starts with the stevia plant. Stevia-like ingredients produced in laboratories by others are not stevia ingredients. The Company works with farmers in Asia, Africa, Latin America and North America to grow and source its proprietary stevia plants. PureCircle’s agricultural programs, not only provide the company with high-quality stevia, but also help support sustainability and farm communities.

Commenting on the breakthrough stevia leaf variety, PureCircle CEO Maga Malsagov stated:

“We are excited about our expansion program for our latest stevia varietal. It is the result of, and a testament to, our world-class agronomy and innovation. This further enhances our ability to provide food and beverage companies access to the best tasting content from the leaf, offering them a globally scaled supply and a cost-efficiency which has never before been possible.”

In the last decade. largely due to PureCircle’s efforts, stevia has come a long way. Some years ago, it was viewed as a plant-based, zero-calorie, single-ingredient sweetener which worked well in some beverage and food applications. Today, our next generation stevia leaf sweeteners offer sugar-like taste and work well in broad array of beverage and food products. We maximize use of each stevia plant to offer a robust portfolio of next generation stevia leaf ingredients including Reb M, flavors and antioxidants. These ingredients help beverage and food companies increase their offerings of zero- and low-calorie products without sacrificing taste.

Enquiries: Media

Jackson Pillow, Media Relations Manager
Email: Jackson.Pillow@purecircle.com Phone: +1 630 256 8394

About PureCircle

• PureCircle is the only company that combines advanced R&D with full vertical integration from farm to high-quality, great-tasting innovative stevia sweeteners.
• The Company collaborates with farmers who grow the stevia plants and with food and beverage companies which seek to improve their low- and no-calorie formulations using a sweetener from plants.
• PureCircle will continue to: lead in research, development and innovation; produce a growing supply of multiple varieties of stevia sweeteners with sugar-like taste, using all necessary and appropriate methods of production; and be a resource and innovation partner for food and beverage companies.
• PureCircle stevia flavor modifiers work in synergy with sweeteners to improve the taste, mouthfeel and calorie profile, and enhance the cost effectiveness, of beverage and food products.
• Founded in 2002, PureCircle is continually investing in breakthrough research and development and it has been granted 200 stevia-related patents with more than 250 applied for patents pending.
• PureCircle has offices around the world with the global headquarters in Chicago, Illinois.
• To meet growing demand for stevia sweeteners, PureCircle is rapidly ramping up its supply capability. It completed expansion of its Malaysian stevia extract facility in March 2017, increasing its capacity to rapidly supply the newer and great-tasting specialty stevia sweeteners and helping provide ever-increasing value to its customers.
• PureCircle’s shares are listed on the main market of the London Stock Exchange.
• For more information, visit: www.purecircle.com

About stevia

• Given the growing global 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. Sweeteners from the stevia plant offer sugar-like taste and are becoming an increasingly important tool for these companies.
• Like sugar, stevia sweeteners are from plants. But unlike sugar, they enable low-calorie and zero-calorie formulations of beverages and foods.
• Stevia leaf extract is a natural-based, zero calorie, high-intensity sweetener, used by global food and beverage companies as a great-tasting zero-calorie alternative to sugar and artificial sweeteners.
• Stevia is a naturally sweet plant native to South America; today, it is grown around the world, notably in Kenya, China and the US.
• The sweet-tasting parts of the stevia leaf are up to 350 times sweeter than sugar: stevia’s high-intensity sweetness means it requires far less water and land than sugar.
• Research has shown that the molecules of the stevia leaf are present and unchanged in the dried stevia leaf, through the commercial extraction and purification process, and in the final stevia leaf extract product. All major global regulatory organisations, across 65 countries, have approved the use of high-purity stevia leaf extracts in food and beverages.
• For more information on the science of stevia, please visit https://www.purecirclesteviainstitute.com/

A photo accompanying this announcement is available at https://www.globenewswire.com/NewsRoom/AttachmentNg/114d4eb9-f851-4ea0-b350-095fab553d2d

A PureCircle Stevia Plant

A PureCircle Stevia Plant