Ingredion collaborates with Better Juice to provide sugar reduction solution
Gali Yarom and Eran Blachinsky, Better Juice. Image: Janet Erlich.
FoodTech start-up Better Juice is collaborating with Ingredion through its venture investment arm, Ingredion Ventures, to lead a Series A funding round, which will fast-track penetration of its breakthrough sugar reduction solution into the US juice market.
Better Juice’s sugar reduction technology removes simple sugars in juice-based beverages, concentrates and other natural sugar-containing liquids. The company developed an enzymatic technology, which converts sugars into non-digestible compounds, such as dietary fibres and non-digestible sugars, while maintaining the natural profile of vitamins, minerals and organic acids in the final product.
“This important partnership step is truly exciting,” enthuses Gali Yarom, co-founder and co-CEO of Better Juice. “It dovetails perfectly with the Better Juice strategy to penetrate the North American market. Ingredion was impressed by our non-GMO technology, and its uses in a wide variety of applications. This move will open doors to leading food and beverage companies seeking sugar-reduction solutions for their products.”
“The Better Juice technology adds a completely new dimension to our portfolio of sugar reduction solutions for food and beverage brands on a mission to meet increased consumer demand for less sugar,” says Nate Yates, sugar reduction business leader at Ingredion.
“This technology also provides manufacturers with more options to successfully reduce sugar without compromising on great taste or nutrition.”
The environmentally friendly clean-label conversion process applies proprietary beads composed of non-GMO microorganisms which produce enzymes. These enzymes convert the juice’s composition of fruit sugars including sucrose, glucose, and fructose into better-for-you prebiotic fibres and other non-digestible molecules. This enables sugar reduction by 30 to 80 per cent.
“This alliance will accelerate our go-to-market journey,” explains Eran Blachinsky, PhD, co-founder and co-CEO of Better Juice. “Ingredion’s capital support will allow us to extend the technology to other liquids with natural sources of sugar, such as milk, beer, and wine.”
This achievement follows Better Juice’s partnership with GEA Group.
Better Juice’s solution has successfully advanced to commercial scale in the US. In recent years, it demonstrated its full proof of concept in collaboration with juice manufacturers in the US and Asia.
These companies are now poised to progress to the next stage of commercialisation. Better Juice is now fully prepped for market entry, with a capacity to process 250 million litres of sugar reduced juice per year.
Since 2022, the groundbreaking GEA Better Juice Sugar Converter Skid is included in GEA’s test center in Ahaus, Germany. Better Juice collaborates with GEA for manufacturing the bioreactor, and together they install the technology in customers’ facilities.
“Better Juice has achieved important milestones in the past two years and has positioned itself as the leading company for reducing simple sugars from natural sources,” notes Amir Zaidman, VP of The Kitchen Hub. “The timing is perfect for serving the rapidly expanding trend of consumers striving to cut down on simple sugars in their diet.”
