CHAPTER 3: Steviol Glycosides Production: Traditional Versus New Technologies

In this chapter, an update is given on technologies applied for steviol glycosides production: a currently fast-evolving domain, mixing traditional and highly “high-tech” biotechnological processes. From sweetening compounds as plant crude extracts, or purified molecules extracted in a traditional way from Stevia rebaudiana plants grown in fields up to biotechnologically produced steviol glycosides as sweeteners for the food industry renouncing completely the plant as a source, the impact of regulations on the evolution of technologies (or vice versa!) will be presented and discussed. For the consumers, food safety and naturalness are of growing importance in their demand for healthy and natural food products; understanding all the technological processes implications on the labelling of products is of course not always easy to apprehend; this is why simple and easily understandable rules for naturalness, organic certification, food or novel food products must be revised or defined by regulation authorities in order to clarify and simplify a very complex situation for the consumers.