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Market: AIM
Sector: Food Producers
EPIC: PURE
Latest Price: 113.00p  (-0.88% Descending)
52-week High: 167.00p
52-week Low: 77.50p
Market Cap: 17.45M
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Purecircle
www.purecircle.com
The development and manufacture of natural food ingredients for supply to the global food and beverage industry with a current focus in the production and sale of extracted natural high intensity sweetener.
Full Purecircle profile here
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PureCircle says demand for stevia keeps on growing

13th Jul 2011, 7:39 am by Jon Mainwaring PureCircle is the world's largest supplier of high-purity stevia - a naturally-occurring sugar substitute

 

Sugar substitute firm PureCircle (LON:PURE) said that market data from all regions around the world shows strong growth in awareness and demand for the kinds of high-purity stevia-sweetened products that it produces.

Providing an update on the global high-purity stevia market, today, PureCircle said that data from market research firm Nielsen showed that annualised retail consumption in the US of high-purity stevia amounted to 195 tons during the quarter to 31 March this year, an increase of 101 percent over Q1 2010’s 97 tons.

The firm added that industrial sales volumes of high-purity stevia in the US translated to consumer retail consumption of around US$1.1 billion in annualised food and beverage products sweetened with stevia.

This compared with US$495 million of annualised retail sales in H1 2010.

PureCircle explained that the higher rate of growth in retail sales value compared to volume consumption is due to the changing mix of products using high-purity stevia. In particular, it said that the more reduced and mid-calorie product formulations are now being consumed as opposed to just diet of zero-calorie products.

Meanwhile, the high-purity stevia market is experiencing growth across all key categories. The ‘flavoured waters’ category has reached nearly US$500 million in estimated annualised sales, up 35 percent over the prior quarter and 75 percent greater than Q1 2010.

The ‘juices’ category has reached US$220 million, up 27 percent over Q4 2010 and 98 percent over Q1 2010.

The ‘baked goods’ and ‘sugar substitutes’ categories also saw strong increases.

PureCircle pointed to research from Datamonitor that found that 301 food and beverage products sweetened with high-purity stevia were launched in the US during the year to 31 March 2011 – an increase of 23 percent compared to the previous 12 months.

There have also been several notable new product launched around the world by major global and regional manufacturers since the start of 2011. In the US, for example, Lipton 100 percent Natural Iced Tea, Gatorade G Series Fit sports drink and Nestle Jamba all Natural Energy Drink all contained high-purity stevia.

In Latin America, Equal Sweet (Argentina), Doce Menor 100 percent Stevia (Brazil), Iansa Cero K (Chile) and Natuvia (Costa Rica) were table-top products launched this year that use high-purity stevia. France, Asia and Australia also saw the launch of several products containing high-purity stevia.

PureCircle add that a May 2011 study found that consumer-aided stevia awareness has now reached 62 percent across the general US populations – up from 46 percent a year earlier – and that this level of awareness is 20 percentage points higher in the US market than Sucralose (which is at 42 percent awareness) despite Sucralose having been introduced into the market in 1998.

"The market data across all regions shows consistent strong growth in consumer awareness and demand for high purity stevia sweetened products,” said Jason Hecker, global marketing vice president for PureCircle. “We believe this trend will continue and will accelerate with the forthcoming opening of the EU market."

 

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