Cargill muscles in on trehalose market

The health food ingredients division of US agri-food giant Cargill is set to launch a new sugar ingredient onto the market, trehalose.

Cargill Health and Food Technologies this week announced the arrival of its trehalose ingredient onto the market, claiming this new ingredient will create a new generation of food and drink products.

Touted as the new energy ingredient, trehalose is a naturally occurring non-reducing disaccharide composed of two glucose molecules that has a prolonged glucose release when compared to glucose and maltose. Significantly, although it is a fully caloric sugar, trehalose appears to have a lower insulin response.

The entry of such a major player onto the trehalose market will have an impact on the smaller producers. In Europe a group of minor ingredients companies have been promoting the potential health benefits of trehalose​ for some time and in 2001 the European Commission approved the use of this sugar trehalose as a novel food in the EU.This approval followed authorisation for use in the United States, Japan, Taiwan and Korea as well as positive evaluation by JECFA (Joint Expert Committee for Food Additives).

Trehalose is manufactured from starch using an enzymatic process.