GLG Life Tech already had self-affirmed GRAS for its Rebpure RA97 product, which was independently confirmed to be molecularly identical to Cargill’s Reb A ingredient back in December 2008, the day after Cargill became one of the first companies to receive an FDA letter of no objection for the sweetener’s safety. Reb A, also known as rebaudioside A, is one of the sweet components of the stevia leaf and is about 200-300 times sweeter than sugar (sucrose).
The company said it received its FDA no objection letter for its Rebpure 97 on Tuesday. It has also filed for FDA GRAS status for its self-affirmed BlendSure sweetening system and for its PureSTV purified stevioside product.
GLG’s president and CEO Dr. Luke Zhang said in a statement: “This approval affirms our long-term commitment to provide our customers with the highest quality standards of stevia extracts in the United States and around the world.”
GLG Life Tech signed a ten-year agreement to supply Cargill with an extract from the stevia plant to make its Reb A sweetener in April 2008. The company already had a five-year agreement with Cargill and the ten-year agreement is automatically renewable until at least 2030.
The FDA issued its first letters of no objection for the safety of Reb A in December 2008 – to Cargill and Merisant, a subsidiary of the Whole Earth Sweetener Company. These effectively opened up the market in the United States for stevia-sweetened food and beverage products. Following an initial period dominated by companies conducting formulation R&D, products sweetened with Reb A have started to flood onto the market, with well over 100 introductions in the first half of 2010, according to Mintel’s Global New Products Database.