The fourth edition of the Stevia Global Summit India, organised by the Noida-based Stevia Global Forum in association with the India Stevia Association, is slated to take place at PHD Chamber of Commerce and Industry, PHD House, located on New Delhi's August Kranti Marg, on April 21, 2013.
This conference on the stevia value chain will provide an insight into its applications in the food and beverage industry, stevia regulatory issues, the Food Safety and Standards Authority of India's (FSSAI) nod to stevia for use in Indian food products, stevia market trends and investments and developments in stevia across the globe.
The approval by the country's apex food regulator of the use of stevia in various food products in India has opened the doors for national and international companies to market their products in the country, which is inhabited by 1.3 billion people (of which approximately 6.5 million are diabetic).
The global sweetener market is worth over $60 billion. Sugar is worth $50 billion, high-fructose corn syrup is worth $6.5 billion and high-intensity sweeteners are worth $3 billion. Multi-national food and beverage companies such as Pepsi and Coca-Cola have said that stevia will have a major role to play in reducing calories from about 20 per cent of their current product range.
Experts from the field will throw light on the latest developments and innovations in the stevia industry and key personnel representing the R&D, innovation, new product development, marketing and food safety and quality assurance wings of leading stevia companies will be present at the summit, to discuss, innovate, share knowledge and shape the stevia industry's future.
The issues that will be discussed at the summit include:
• The impact of approval of stevia by FSSAI in India; how to calculate ADIs and equivalent steviol, and how much steviol glycoside is to be used in each product, of what grade it should be and in what quantity it should be;
• How stevia-growing countries can capitalise on the approval of stevia by the European Union and the United States, and the role India can play to become a hub for the cultivation of stevia;
• Understanding stevia specifications as stipulated by the Codex regulations, the joint Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO)/World Health Organisation (WHO) export committee on food additives (JECFA) and the WHO guidelines;
• Discussing the major challenges in the selection of planting material with high rebaodioside contents, agronomy, tissue culture and vegetative propagation issues, cultivation conditions, yield, contents, harvesting and warehousing;
• How to overcome technical challenges in the processing and extraction of stevia concentrate through water base technology, ethanol, solvent or carbon dioxide critical extraction technologies;
• Discussing the concerns of the industry about the stevia supply chain – Can it cope with the increased demand, and will it become a cost-neutral alternative to sugar?
• Discussing the issues related to the use of stevia in food products such as food ingredients; tackling taste and other inconsistencies, and how to overcome these so as to use stevia as a sugar replacement;
• Evaluating the need for an industry standard, methods for analyses and purity levels of steviol glycosides, and
• Challenges in developing and launching various food products using stevia as a natural sweetener
