Dean Francis, CEO of Sweet Green Fields, said that while other stevia producers have their primary agriculture investments outside the US, SGF sought to invest in the US utilising best farming practices and technology to provide scale and reliability.
“Stevia is still a young industry and one challenge for US food and beverage companies is to sort out who is truly a vertically integrated provider versus a trader,” he said. “When we began touring leading food and beverage companies through our commercial crops, they knew we are real.”
“More than 80% of the world’s stevia originates from China due to low labour costs,” said Mike Quin, SVP sales and marketing for SGF. “We have supply agreements with US companies that have many decades of brand investment to build consumer trust. Sourcing stevia grown locally gives them added visibility and confidence in their supply chain. We have begun signing multiyear supply agreements for our US crop. Leading North American companies have expressed strong interest in locally grown stevia and SGF is leading the way.”
Source: Sweet Green Fields
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