PureCircle recognized for producing high-quality sweetener and for supporting non-profit organizations, including Amigos de las Americas.
www.foodnavigator.com
By Jess Halliday, 03-Apr-2009
The supply chain for stevia is sound and sustainable, says to
PureCircle, which communicating the ethical values behind its high
purity Reb-A sweetener in keeping with the natural image.
Reb-A has gained huge interest in the last 18 months as a natural
zero calorie sweetener. Although European approval is yet to be
achieved, Reb-A with 95 per cent or more purity of steviol glycosides
can now be used in food and beverage products in key markets of the US
and Australian and New Zealand.
“It is important to start from the very beginning that the supply chain story is nothing to be concerned about,” Dorn Wenninger, corporate VP of supply chain at PureCircle, told FoodNavigator.com.
Stevia is not a large scale commodity crop like corn and sugar. Rather, the average size of a stevia
plantation today is less than one hectare – and Pure Circle currently
has 15,000 hectares contracted in Kenya Paraguay, Columbia, Indonesia,
Vietnam, Thailand and China.
“Stevia is a cash crop in rural environments, in today’s commodity market that is very favourable,”
Wenninger said. The company is able to give a firm price to farmers a
minimum of one year in advance, an assurance that enables them to make
decisions on what to grow.
He declined to give precise figures, saying it is market driven,
depends on the country, and is hard to generalise. But he said that the
assured income helps discourage rural migration to the cities in search
of better job prospects.
“Stevia is being met enthusiastically, there is no shortage of growers looking to grow it,” he said.
Coordination
The model for coordinating so many small farmers is unique in every country. In some places PureCircle
works with well-established cooperatives whose members grow a variety
of crops, including stevia; in others, it works with committee
committees; and in others, such as China, government offices set up
especially for stevia.
The company also runs model farms to which it invites farmers,
cooperatives and governments for demonstrations on good agricultural
practices and increasing yields. In each country there are between
three and five experts, who have PhDs or masters degrees in agronomy
and carry out visits to individual farms, as well as local support
workers who can number in the hundreds.
One of the challenges of working with such a huge number of farmers is
quality control. However PureCircle is vertically integrated company,
which enables checks throughout the whole process – from propagation of
plant material, through to farming, extraction of steviol glycosides,
and purification.
“We do every one ourselves, and people on the ground can check every stage of production.”
Extraction locations
Over the last 30 years the main market for stevia has been in Japan and
Korea. This means that, historically, a large part of the world’s
stevia crop is grown in Asia, and it makes sense to carry out the
extraction close to the growing area. PureCircle’s main extraction plan
is in JiangXi, China, which has a capacity of 45,000 tonnes of leaf.
While for now PureCircle has to transport stevia grown in the Americas
and Africa to Asia for extraction, local extraction capability is in
the pipeline as it expects to break ground on two new facilities in
Kenya and Paraguay in the next six to 12 months.
NGO cooperation
Wenninger is on the international board directors of a NGO called
Amigos de las Americas, which carries out public health projects in
Central and Southern Americas.
One of Amigos’ development projects is San Pedro in Paraguay, one of
the largest Stevia growing areas. PureCircle has recently made a
$25,000 donation to allow volunteers to take part in community projects
here – such as the building of new stoves.
Traditionally the people tend to use wood burning stoves to cook food,
but their inefficiency means they contribute to unnecessary
deforestation. The new stoves still burn wood, as the intention is not
to interfere in traditions, but they do so more efficiently.
In time, PureCircle expects to offer the opportunity for its own
employees to volunteer in the projects. Wenninger said the company will
also “definitely look at other NGOs in other countries”.
