Finding sugar substitutes to lower calorie intake, regulate blood sugar levels, and enhance people's quality of life has become increasingly important as obesity and diabetes become more common. There are many sweeteners and sugar substitutes available, both artificial and natural, but they're all compromised as they either have negative health effects or are expensive to produce.

Nowadays, biotechnologically produced sweet protein is a new dietary ingredient that is thought to be the most promising substitute. It does not cause blood glucose levels to rise and is thousands of times sweeter than sucrose.

While many companies worldwide are working on developing technologies for producing sweet proteins, the Russian Federation is the closest to putting the product into practical use. EFKO supported by scientific teams led by academicians from the Russian Academy of Sciences has developed a technology for producing brazzein, a sweet protein, and completed its certification in the United Arab Emirates.

Now the company has announced that it has gained certification throughout the Eurasian Economic Union: in Russia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, and Armenia. This means that the product is safe and satisfies all food ingredient criteria, which implies that brazzein will soon be found in sweet products like ice cream, drinks, candies, and the like on retail shelves.

Evgeny Lyashenko,
EFKO CEO

"Technology for synthesizing sweet proteins has been developing worldwide, some businesses are advancing their projects in this field. However, there are still a few precedents for sweet protein certification: the Arab Emirates and the countries of the Eurasian Economic Union only. And in all cases, it was technology by EFKO. It turns out that Russia is emerging as one of the industry leaders in the sweet protein field when it comes to product introduction. Having completed all the required processes, we can launch the industrial production of sweet protein."

Since the project start in 2020, EFKO has invested 1.3 billion rubles in the development of sweet protein production technology and its refinement.

"We are now at the stage of designing the first facility for industrial brazzein production in Russia. Investments in scaling up the project will amount to more than 10 billion rubles," Evgeny Lyashenko adds.

The construction of the sweet protein facility is scheduled upon completion of the design stage in 2025.