Cargill introduced its ViaTech line of stevia-based sweeteners. The new sweetener line enables beverage-makers to achieve optimal sweet taste at high use levels, which has been a limitation with previous stevia-based products, the company says. When used in combination with Cargill’s proprietary taste prediction model, ViaTech also can help achieve a clean sweetness even in some difficult zero-calorie and reduced-calorie beverage formulations, it adds. Cargill scientists have extensively researched the stevia leaf to understand how the different steviol glycosides found within it work alone and in combination. This approach allows Cargill developers to focus not only on optimizing taste and sweetness but also on creating ingredients that enable a sensible total formulation cost for food and beverage manufacturers, it says.

Cargill, P.O. Box 9300, Minneapolis, Minn. 55440; 800/227-4455; cargill.com.