Natural stevia offering receives FEMA GRAS approval

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HB Natural Ingredients have received FEMA GRAS approval for its line of stevia products. Pic: ©GettyImages/viperagp

The US’s Flavor Extracts Manufacturers Association (FEMA) has issued GRAS approval for Vitosa natural flavors, a new line of stevia products from HB Natural Ingredients.

The range includes three options – Active, Delight and Match – all designed to provide modification properties to impart, enhance or modify the flavor profile of a wide range of foods, including sweetened snacks, cookies and other baked goods.

The flavors improve the overall sensory performance of natural and artificial high-intensity sweeteners by increasing the sweetening power up to 50% in added sugar water at the authorized doses.

The result is a full-bodied mouthfeel and improved flavor and aroma.

Natural ingredients producer HB Natural Ingredients, a subsidiary of BGG World, developed the patent-pending technological innovation.

“Our range of Vitosa natural flavors give flavorists dynamic new capabilities to optimize the flavor and taste profile of their formulations while providing cost savings compared to existing options,” said Dr Varuzhan Abelyan, co-chairman and chief of Science & Technology, HB Natural Ingredients.

“It’s now possible to develop a much broader range of great tasting natural flavor systems and reduced and sugar-free product development solutions that deliver great taste while also reducing calories.”

Clean label

The natural flavors are soluble in water, propylene glycol and aqueous ethanol solutions; can withstand high temperatures and offer pH and storage stability.

They are also synergistic with a wide range of natural sugars and high-intensity sweeteners, as well as low-calorie and slow release carbohydrate sweeteners and rare sugars.

FEMA’s GRAS (generally recognized as safe) approval and classification of Vitosa as a flavoring with modifying properties (FMP) allows producers to add ‘natural flavor’ on the labeling.

The FEMA GRAS program is a widely recognized industry assessment program, using scientific criteria that is published in peer-reviewed scientific literature so it may be reviewed and understood by regulators, business and the public.

HB Natural Ingredients is a specialty plant-based ingredients provider with a portfolio that includes technology-driven ingredients like Vitosa natural flavors and stevia sweeteners, stevia leaf extracts and licorice root extracts, including MAG (Mono Ammonium Glycyrrhizinate).