To help food and beverage companies develop products that satisfy health-and-wellness trends without sacrificing taste, Cargill developed EverSweet, a zero-calorie sweetener made with the same sweetness found in the stevia leaf, Reb M and Reb D. EverSweet provides consumers the great taste they crave with better sweetness intensity, faster sweetness onset and improved sweetness quality — without the bitterness or offnote aftertaste common with other stevia sweeteners, the company says. Because the stevia plant produces only trace amounts of these molecules, using Reb M and Reb D to produce a sweetener hasn’t been commercially or environmentally viable until now with fermentation, it adds. EverSweet is expected to be commercially available this year.

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