Natural Sweeteners: How Stevia and Monk Fruit Formulators Support Their Claims

As consumer wariness of artificial sweeteners remains, brand owners may be pressured to prove — not just claim — that their formulations are genuinely natural and plant-based. High-intensity sweeteners like stevia and monk fruit offer a path forward, but translating their botanical origins into clear, substantiated labeling remains a challenge, with each format bringing its own formulation hurdles. Meanwhile, R&D teams are pushing past the lingering bitterness and aftertaste that have long limited traditional stevia extracts, while supply chains face rising demands for traceability and scale.

To unpack these challenges, Nutritional Outlook spoke with Doris Ip, Senior Marketing Manager at Layn Natural Ingredients, about next-generation sweetener technology, application-specific formulation strategies, and what manufacturers should look for when vetting suppliers for long-term stability.

For more on sweeteners, read the Last Bite column in the upcoming July/August issue of Nutritional Outlook.

Nutritional Outlook: Layn highlights that nearly half of global consumers actively avoid products containing artificial sweeteners. How can B2B brand owners more effectively communicate the 'natural' and 'plant-based' origin of these high-intensity sweeteners without over-promising on the label?

Doris Ip: Brands can use specific, factual language such as “sweetened with stevia leaf extract” or “contains monk fruit extract,” supported by accurate sourcing, processing and traceability information. Broad claims such as “100% natural” may be interpreted differently across markets and should therefore be used cautiously. Communication should focus on the ingredient’s botanical origin, manufacturing process and role as a high-intensity sweetener. Any finished-product claims, including “reduced sugar” or “no added sugar,” should be evaluated and substantiated based on the complete formulation and applicable regulations.

Nutritional Outlook: Can you share more about the applications of these sweeteners in bakery, dairy, beverages, sports nutrition, and snacks? Are there any format-specific challenges that must be overcome?

Ip: Stevia and monk fruit can support sugar reduction across all these categories, but they replace sweetness — not sugar’s full functionality. Bakery and dairy may require added bulking or texture support, beverages require strong solubility and clarity, sports nutrition must address bitter notes from proteins and minerals, and snacks require careful flavor and coating balance.

Nutritional Outlook: For R&D teams currently struggling with the lingering aftertaste often associated with traditional stevia extracts, how do the glycosides in Layn’s sweeteners address those sensory hurdles?

Ip: SteviUp M2, Layn’s next-generation Reb M, is designed to deliver cleaner sweetness with less bitterness, licorice character and lingering aftertaste than conventional stevia systems. Its improved solubility supports better clarity, dispersion and consistency across applications, making it especially suitable for clear beverages, concentrates, other liquid formulations and powdered drink mixes where appearance and uniform sweetness are important. Layn also offers a broad monk fruit portfolio that can be used synergistically with stevia to create a more rounded, sugar-like sweetness profile.

Nutritional Outlook: Looking ahead to the next three to five years, how is Layn balancing the need for scalability in plant-based sweeteners with the increasing demand for sustainable, verifiable supply chain traceability? What should manufacturers be looking for when auditing their sweetener suppliers to ensure long-term stability?

Ip: Layn’s vertically integrated model connects cultivar development, grower partnerships, extraction, manufacturing and quality testing. The company is also advancing new sweetener platforms, including fermented mogroside V, currently at lab scale, and U.S. manufacturing capabilities for bioconverted Reb M.

Together, these investments support future scalability, supply-chain traceability and more flexible regional manufacturing. When auditing suppliers, manufacturers should review farm-to-batch traceability, testing and certifications, production capacity, contingency planning and the ability to scale without compromising quality.