Why does EverSweet® stevia sweetener taste so sweet?

Cargill works to find ways to keep great tasting foods affordable. Fermentation is one way to make that happen.

For thousands of years, the people of South America knew about the sweetness of stevia plants. They knew it was extremely sweet, so only a small amount was needed to sweeten their favorite foods and beverages. What they didn’t know was that stevia leaves contain tasty little treasures called steviol glycosides, which delight our taste buds by reacting with the sweet receptors on our tongues – and contain zero calories!

Some of those same sweet glycosides are produced when our specially crafted yeast is fed what it loves – simple sugars. These yeast cells digest the simple sugars and turn them into the calorie-free sweet flavor people love!

Previously, these tasty glycosides were only found in the stevia plant. Now, our yeast produces them too – only it does it much more efficiently than conventional leaf-based production. Wondering how we get the specially crafted yeast to do this?