Episode 33: Suresh Chander from Arboreal Stevia

Transcript

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I'm Zachary Cartwright this is water and food today my guest is Suresh Chandler
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who's the r d lead at Arbor real Stevia he is here today to discuss what Stevia
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is some of the misconceptions about it and how Stevia is used in the food industry he also discusses some of the
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advantages and disadvantages of using this sugar substitute let's hear what Suresh has to say on this episode of
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water in food alright hey Suresh welcome to water and food thank you for being here today I know we've been talking
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about having you on for a long time so I'm happy that we can finally get together uh thanks Zach thanks for
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inviting me uh to this podcast and I'm sure it's going to be in very interesting discussion where we are
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going to talk more about Stevia today and I appreciate you being here I know it's quite a big time difference I I
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believe it's 8 P.M there and 9 30 a.m of where you're at so good morning and uh I
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just want to start off by asking you what is Stevia what why are you here today to talk about this product
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right so uh I represent arboreal by Innovations so we are as Stevia
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manufacturing company and uh so I'm interested in educating people more
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about Stevia right so t is actually a high intensity natural sweetener which
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is actually extracted from Stevia leaves right the stevia leaves
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comes from a plant known as Stevia robertina batoni which is actually a native to a native to South America
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so it is completely zero calorie clean label and a very sustainable sweetener right so I represent India right so
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India is a diabetic Capital so India as a India is a typical case study
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where you know how junk Foods lifestyle based disorders can be life-threatening
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one right so that's we are actually sitting on the capital of diabetes you know that's where it makes Stevia more
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relevant and my company more relevant to offer such kind of you know sugar
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reduced product and low calorie products particularly in India and when you first reached out and we
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first started talking about doing this podcast you mentioned that there are some misconceptions about Stevia out
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there what are some of those misconceptions uh so when it when it comes to Stevia
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you know people often think that uh you know like any other uh ingredient you
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know more pure the ingredient uh it's always better right but actually to be
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frank there is not much correlation between the purity of the extract and The Taste performance in a particular
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recipe right so Stevia extracts behave more like a flavor than a sweetener
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right you know different Stevia glycosides present in Stevia and extracts they interact a bit differently
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and according to the Target food Matrix and unique flavors they work bit
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differently so for example uh there is a standard uh pure Rabbi 60 percentage
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extract right it it also contains other molecules Beyond uh rabideoside a
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it also contains steviocide and other components like ribsy or uh rev B right
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so at what what happens is that works very good for you know Citrus based
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applications right but on the other hand for tomato ketchup right
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80 works so it's not always that just the pure
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extracts like Rabbi 99 works really well for uh you know uh beverages or certain
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applications so that's one of the biggest uh misconceptions I wanted to actually address
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and the second important uh thing is many people think Stevia is
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actually very expensive so uh I would say the answer is yes I don't know right
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so if you on a kg basis uh Stevia is somewhere around somewhere ranks between
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fifty dollars to you know it it ranges up to 250 to 300 dollars
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but what happens is the concentration of stevia in the final product it's like
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relatively less you are going to use somewhere between uh 0.02 to zero points
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lesser than 0.05 percentage in many applications right so in some in certain
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cases Stevia can also offer a cost reduction right
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when I say it is more expensive yes Stevia is a naturally derived product
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right so we have to extract it from the stevia leaves so comparing to other
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artificial sweeteners like aspartame and Sucralose you know which are much more cheaper to synthesize
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tibia takes a little bit of a back seat over there right when you compare to the uh current uh artificial sweeteners out
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there because that's how you know industry people compare in terms of cost right so Stevia is not always expensive
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it depends uh it depends on the use case right and what customer wants yeah and
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you're working for a company that is producing Stevia why don't you tell me a little bit about your company and where
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you're located and how long you've been in business right so I work for uh I work for
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arboreal so arboreal Bio Innovation so arboreal is a global ingredient Solutions company right so arbolia was
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actually founded in uh 2015 uh by swathi swathi Pandey
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so she is an IIT graduate and an Imperial College London graduate and the
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other co-founder is Manish Chauhan so he is also from London business school and
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he also completed his bachelor's from bits Milani another reputed Institute from India right ever since we have
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started we have 100 percentage focused on developing a uh vertically integrated
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uh stevia manufacturing company right so that's that's where arboreal takes a very
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unique approach where it actually curates and controls every step of stevia value chain right from
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cultivation of stevia saplings to the extraction process of the sweet compounds and also to develop a ready-made
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Solutions and with an affordable cost at the same time with
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greater performance right and to add more about it we also have a full-fledged application center uh
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Global application center situated in northern part of India which is Lucknow and then we also have an uh excellent
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Center in Chennai which is just dedicated only for you know developing low calorie
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products particularly based out of stevia so we have been able to make Stevia work
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and we also have been able to uh you know customize Stevia Solutions where uh
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you know uh where many other players were not able to do so in the past three months we have
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worked closed with close to almost 55 plus Brands and we have helped them launch their product
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with our Stevia and uh with through our uh you know uh dedicated formulations
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program and in your role there uh sureshia and r d lead is is that correct what do you do
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in your specific role and and how did you end up there what was your journey to ending up with arboreal stevia
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so uh that's that's that's actually an uh very interesting uh uh discussion to
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have so uh basically uh I graduated uh from uh University of Helsinki Finland
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right so after so it was uh it wasn't very much an of an Awakening moment
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during my masters so where I got exposed to new technologies and the you know new
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age ingredients uh which which uh unfortunately I didn't uh get during my
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bachelor's right because I I I'm from a biotechnology background so from biotech to a foot Tech uh it's a it's a big
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transition right so uh from their honors I decided that you know I want to be in
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the functional ingredient space so that that was the starting point so
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then I had to return back to India and I chose an opportunity in uh product
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development right so during my masters only so I was very much sure that I want
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to be in product development and uh applications uh particularly in product Innovations right so that was just that
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was the start and when I came back to India the
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the new age companies were like lesson number back in 2014 right so uh
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then the opportunities were also pretty much less comparing to uh other countries right because r d is something
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that is uh r d uh drive has been much more better in the last 10 years so then
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uh that's where like I chose an opportunity in r d then uh I was actually continuously looking for this
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new age companies and uh companies who are creating actually functional ingredients so that's where I stumbled
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upon arboreal and uh I joined arboreal right so I was one of
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the early members to join arboreal because the first few years of arboreal is all about you know
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farming and backward integration so then then the uh mastered uh the
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manufacturing process on the verge of scaling up of the manufacturing process you know that's where they realized you
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know we need to have an uh customized formulation support and that's where uh
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I I came into picture right so we literally started from a small room
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where you know we started with uh small small uh formulations and now we have uh now two
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dedicated uh centers for r d so it's it's been a big uh journey in the last
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uh four years right so that's how I ended up in this space and to be frank you know this sweetness
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piece as such it's it's a very gray area right not much of knowledges out there yes there are like a lot of Publications
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and Academia is aware about and Academy is already aware but what
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happens is when it comes to Industrial applications more about you know commercialization and uh it should be
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affordable right so that's where you know arboreal comes into place and you know we have uh you know developed a
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proprietary and you know customized solutions for different mattresses
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and you mentioned that you've worked with maybe 50 or more Brands and types of products generally what types of
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products does your company work with where companies are replacing sugar with
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stevia what what types of products are these so generally two important uh queries
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comes to us right first is you know for 100 percentage sugar reduction next next
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is uh you know they want to launch a low calorie product do you want to have sugar but they want to reduce the amount
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of sugar maybe at 25 percentage level or 50 50 percentage level so these are the two important uh classifications of
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queries we receive and with regards to product range you know we get a range of products right uh Newton protein powders
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protein beverages plant-based uh applications chocolates confectionery
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you know the application is we receive a very broad spectrum of requests but uh
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obviously beverages are the lowest hanging fruit and when it comes to cost you know beverage manufacturers are you
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know much more adaptable and that is the first thing you know any any country and any
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extruded action happens from beverages right because uh many other uh
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product categories have a deeper sugar reduction for example in Bakery you know there is close to 30 to 40 percentage of
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sugar in in chocolates it's more than uh 30 to 40 percentage right so here these
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are like very very sensitive categories so uh the
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the transition for Sugar Sugar reduction in these categories are much more lesser than in you know beverages so most of
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the queries in the initial days we received were from actually uh beverage companies
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and you've mentioned some of the advantages of using Stevia you know maybe cost reduction or if you're trying
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to make a low calorie product and so on what are some of the the cons or maybe some of the difficulties uh with working
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with stevia and anything that comes to mind so uh I think uh this is also a very
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important uh part of addressing uh sugar reduction right so Steve any sugar
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reduction Right comes with uh lot of formulation challenges so first first is like Beyond sweetness
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you know sucrose actually adds like a lot of functional properties to the
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foods and beverages like you know texture mouth feel shelf life you know so substituting these unique properties
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of sucrose has been always on a uh challenging thing right as a product developer uh you know you have to
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possibly ask some of the key questions uh when it comes to reformulation or
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developing a new product right so I I take this uh five question approach
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right so which category of food product it belongs to and what are the regulatory
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challenges particularly associated with that particular food product second question is
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what are the physical and sensorial properties that is expected of the existing product
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or existed or expected to replace when uh when replacing or when you are
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you know substituting sugar third important question is uh what is the percentage of calorie reduction you
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are actually expecting right uh fourth is like percentage of sucrose replacement you want to achieve you know
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sometimes you know people also try to compensate they will completely eliminate sugar and they will sometimes
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they replace it with fibers or other polioles right so that's where you know it's very important to understand how
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much percentage of sucrose you exactly want to reduce the fifth important point is what are the parameters
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that will affect the core qualities of the product like color texture and appearance right so when
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you're reducing sugar like there are a lot of things that actually gets compromised right so in order to
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compromise uh such uh qualities you might have to get these qualities from
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other sources sometimes you might have to use a uh color sometimes you might have to use certain flavors to you know
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match the same product right so these are the important challenges we
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actually address on a daily basis right but when it comes to using stevia
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uh yes Stevia naturally has and after taste and a lingering uh
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effect but the thing is the question is whether the lingering or
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the aftertaste is it desirable or not or is it Pleasant or not and how far we
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want to go right so that's the that's the point it's uh so during early stage of stevia based products uh you know yes
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they were like a lot of lingering and other things but with this new age Solutions and whatever the uh there is a
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range of ingredients and toolbox that we have developed you know that has been helped us to reduce or completely
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eliminate peace aftertaste or the lingering that you actually get from
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uh stevia so I mean these are the important uh problems uh we generally address and
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sometimes people also think that uh the more concentration of stevia the better the
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sweetness right so here is a here is a very very important part to address so
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many people think that you know uh sweeteners or like like sugar you know
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when you increase the concentration this weakness increase linearly but when it comes to Stevia Beyond a certain point
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you know the sweetness will not increase right so you need to understand the threshold of the
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dosage and and the Matrix so then you have to optimize and customize those
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molecules accordingly yeah and I really like that five uh that
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five question approach I really like that because uh if you're meeting with a client and trying to help them
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understand you know maybe if they want to use Stevia these are the things to keep in mind and you know it's showing
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that if they're using sucrose or table sugar there's a lot of functionality there that I think a lot of people don't
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think about right away when they're trying to make a sugar substitution so I really like that process and I'm sure
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it's really helpful for when you meet with clients and help direct them to using your products what are some of the
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challenges related to the production of stevia itself you mentioned your company
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something that's really helped it to shine and maybe do better than other
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companies is the ability to produce successfully but what are some of those
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challenges that your team had to overcome in order to produce stevia
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yeah so you know value creation is actually the Bedrock of you know any
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business right so uh when it comes to addressing challenges so we have channelized our efforts
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at three at three levels first is the farming and supply chain
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right so when it when it comes to farming and Supply chains so that's where as I
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initially mentioned like we have spent our initial year perfecting uh the agreement right so that that makes us a
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vertically integrated Stevia supplier and also we have control over every step
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of the value chain right from the sourcing to the extraction to the manufacturing of the final product so
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this part of business is very important because it helps us to have a complete control over the product and also you
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know many times due to some seasonal changes also uh in for many other companies you
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know the production gets uh stuck or sometimes they might have to increase the cost so
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this has helped us to have a control over the economics of the product as well the second important challenge many
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when it comes to uh Stevia suppliers is the formulation expertise right it's
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not just about the producing the final product I'm just selling it but uh you know many a times you know Stevia needs
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to be customized according to the Target uh product right Stevia is not a
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single molecule it is actually a cocktail of more than 50 molecules right based on the relative composition of
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this Stevia mixture uh The Taste and the performance of the solution varies right so good understanding of the molecules
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is very uh critical so you know this helps us uh designing a very Superior
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yet an economical solution the third is the uh
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core answer for your your question right what are the major process challenges
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so journey of the ingredient and how it gets converted into a final product is
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is essentially a very important aspect and it is very relevant to the current scenario where you know people are
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talking about the sustainability and when customers are also very much interested in knowing how the
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ingredients are getting processed and how it is going to affect their final
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after consumption right so that's where like our proprietary extraction process
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you know where we do not use much of harsh chemicals and our optimized process also helps to have a better
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isolation of the molecule and better recovery right so uh yes so these are
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the three important areas we have actually uh added more value and you
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know that's where our science driven approach has helped us to get you know better performance at each levels
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and do you ever run into any difficulties with with production I I know you're probably doing some type of
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spray drying what does your spray dry process look like and are you measuring moisture or water activity during that
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spray drying process to hit a certain Target for your production
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yeah so TBI involves in aqueous extraction process right and after uh after
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removing all those impurities and you know uh based on the target uh grade you wanted to manufacture so you know the
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concentration of the Aqua Solution happens and then the final product is actually sprayed right
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the challenge here is every time uh you know
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the first level of challenge you will face in in optimizing the cocktail of TV
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mixture right so uh we know that let's say we are going to produce
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remember your size 60. so the revenue side 60 means 60 percentage of steviax
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Stack will be uh composed by Roberto site a the remaining
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40 percentage might be a cocktail of different molecules like steviocides and other uh stevial
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glycosidic molecules right this is the first level challenge the second level challenge is optimizing the musher
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so whenever whenever you're going to spray dry it so the moisture is going to
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certainly uh differ right so let's say even if
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there is one percentage more moisture also you know that is going to actually affect the sweetness and certainly that
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is that will also be affecting the uh final uh concentration of the certain molecules
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right so that's where you know moisture Contour is very very uh you know very
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very critical component in manufacturing of uh tv app used TV extracts and when
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you take a moisture measurement how does your team do it are you using a like a loss on drying method or a titration or
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how do you get that moisture number so so we basically do a two-step
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approach so we basically do a loss and drying method and we also adapt a titration method and what we also do is
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we also collaborate with a third party laboratory to validate all
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our results so by this way so uh our results are more like more robust when
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it comes to the moisture management I see and and the reason that I'm asking
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about this Suresh is because I see a lot of people in your industry who try to use a moisture content measurement uh
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you know to control moisture and prevent clumping or or just to really understand your product and hit a consistent Target
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and this actually relates to a webinar that we recently released um here where
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we talk about substituting sugar and we look at some of the pros and cons of different Alternatives and including
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Stevia and we talk about how they relate not only to moisture but also to water activity and then also a lot about the
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functionality that you mentioned you know if you're having to reduce the amount of sugar then you do have to
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think about these other things you know do you still need Browning to occur or are you still going for a certain mouth
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feel or you know what about shelf life and so on and so I just wanted to take a
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moment and uh you know recommend that webinar and it's something that we can add a link to this podcast to because I
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do think that you even at your company me and people in your industry May really benefit from that webinar so it
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it just happened to be perfect timing that your subject manner fell in line with with other things that we've been
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working on so I just wanted to to make sure to mention that absolutely that is actually a spot on uh
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Zach so that's what I was actually uh uh talking about in the first part of the
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discussion right these things are like very very relevant when it comes to you know when it's come when it comes to
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sugar right so at eating each moisture level and for at each temperature so it
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it exhibits different properties right and uh the understanding of moisture
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versus sweetness and particularly in in the final product the understanding has
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been fairly less right so as we told still this is more in a gray area so
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that's where you know these kind of discussions you know will prompt uh researchers and product developers to
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think in that line and uh you know it gives a spotlight to that path
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and Suresh what's next for you and what's next for your company maybe looking in into next year and down the
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road what are the some of the things that you're looking forward to as your company grows right so uh you know arboreal wants to
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uh you know shine as a functional ingredient company right so so we have
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taken up uh more uh sustainable production processes and ingredients
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that uh you know we are currently in r d pipeline so you will be you'll you guys
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will be getting more news in the coming days but uh yeah so we'll be extending
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our portfolio of ingredients that actually enhances the performance of the food and you know
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performance of uh you know human nutrition so we are actually working on that line so you know
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so this is a gist I'll be able to reveal at this part and then finally we we get a lot of
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other food scientists that listen to this podcast if if there's somebody out there listening who's working on a
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project and they're trying to reduce sugar or have a lower calorie version of their product and they're thinking about
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using Stevia how can they get a hold of you or your company what's the best way for them to collaborate with you
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so uh you know when it comes to collaboration like uh we generally uh
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for example I'll share you a very classical uh example so so there was a new comp there was a
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company who wanted to launch uh a protein product where they wanted to incorporate Stevia so where you know
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that they have completed like you know 50 percentage of their product development where and they were stuck with uh you know the sweetener part
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particularly right so you know they were trying to use artificial sweeteners but you know management was not like okay
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with that so that's where they approached us so they usually we requested uh for a base of unsweetened
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sample right and they're uh kind of a control product what what you know
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sometimes they have a benchmark you know kind of this product or this level of sweetness they want to match right so we
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we generally have a two weeks to three weeks uh you know dedicated program when
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it comes to working for working with companies we uh we agree with the timelines based on the other projects
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that is available and within almost like one and a half weeks we were able to turn back to the come company with a
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very uh economical solution and you know the product got launched within like
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within next two months right so uh that quick we are when it comes to uh you
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know customized approach and when we are working with the clients so they can also reach us through me so I'll uh drop
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by my email ID and uh and obviously they can also contact through our website I'll be I'll be happy to put with our uh
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uh you know sales team so yeah we can see how we can work together
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well perfect well I just want to thank you so much for your time Suresh I I think we live in a pretty cool world
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we're a food scientist in Washington state can talk to a food scientist in in in India and we can collaborate and talk
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about the things that we work on and how they relate so I hope this encourages others to also collaborate and I look
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forward to seeing how your company grows and you know maybe your pass will cross again in the future as as your company
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continues to grow so I again I I thank you so much for your time and I I think our listeners will really appreciate it
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as well thank you thank you so much Zach actually for inviting for me for such a
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you know such a nice niche discussion I would say because you know these kind of insights are going to be very uh you
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know provocative and it's going to you know instill a lot of uh you know scientific thoughts when it comes to
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moisture and how an ingredient and a particular parameter interact you know often when you see a certificate of
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analysis uh often people think that moisture or uh is a small part but you
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know it's it's not actually the thing right so what is the most fundamental thing and as a food scientist when we
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have more understanding on how water works right uh I think as a food technologist or a food scientist you
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know we have understood how the world works right uh so I think that's where
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this podcast uh you know takes a very very uh important role and uh thanks for this initiative yeah you're welcome and
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I look forward to talking to you again have a good one Trish have a great week ahead Zach
29:54
I'm Zachary Cartwright this is water in food find this podcast on Apple iTunes
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