Spherix Incorporated, the US company behind tagatose, a new sweetener that received the green light from the FDA last year, this week announced that MD Foods, the company that licences the tagatose ingredient for food and beverage uses, has signed a joint venture plan with Nordzucker of Germany. Nordzucker, the fifth largest sugar producer in Europe, is aiming to produce tagatose commercially in the summer of 2003.
According to a statement released this week, the 50/50 joint venture will produce tagatose at a Nordzucker plant near Hannover, Germany. Nordzucker added that with favourable market acceptance, the company hopes to establish an additional tagatose production at its dairy plant in Taulov, Denmark.
Spherix added in a statement this week that it is making progress on producing tagatose for the non- food uses. Under the recently branded name, Naturlose, a variety of health, medicinal and other uses of the product is being explored with major product manufacturers.