Blue California Ingredients - Good&Sweet™ - Natural Zero Calorie Sweetener

The excellent taste profile and purity of Good&Sweet™ natural, zero-calorie sweetener makes this the logical choice for formulators. The fact that Good&Sweet™ is 400 times sweeter than sucrose, translates to smaller quantities being necessary to attain the desired sweetness in food and beverage products. Good&Sweet has a unique clean taste.

Reb-A ingredient for food and beverage applications

Expert formulators have expressed Good&Sweet is clearly the "best tasting Reb-A in the market". Good&Sweet does not have any of the off-notes and bitter taste associated with steviosides and other Reb-A products that do not meet the same level of purity.

Good&Sweet is a very stable ingredient and perfect for a variety of food and beverage applications such as general diet products, sports nutrition, functional foods, sauces, desserts, confectioneries, yogurts, fruit juices, fruit products, chewing gum, candy, bakery, and a variety of cereals and snacks; in other words, any product where taste is of the outmost importance.

Natural sweetener

Consumers will enjoy a deliciously sweet product - naturally sweetened, without the added calories of sugar or the negative side effects associated with some sugar substitutes and artificial sweeteners.

Good&Sweet offers these optimum features for food applications:

• GRAS certification
• Great taste, no guilt!
• Stable in temperatures up to 350°
• 100% solubility in water
• 400 times sweeter than sugar
• Highest purity in the market, up to 99%
• Excellent clean taste, no characteristic after-taste of other stevia products
• GMP, ISO-9001 and Kosher certifications
• Third party audits and validation

Pesticide free quality controlled sweetener

Good&Sweet is free from pesticides and is manufactured under strict GMP and ISO-9001-2001 quality certifications. Our production facility and manufacturing processes conform to GMP quality requirements in NSF/ANSI Standard 173, Section 8 for dietary supplements and international standards (ISO-9000-2001).

In 2006 Blue California was awarded good manufacturing practices (GMP) registration by the National Science Foundation (NSF), Hazard Analysis and Critical Control Points (HACCP) for food safety and Kosher certification through KOF-K.

Regulatory issues

Blue California received confirmation of the completion of the GRAS assessment by an expert panel on December 15, 2008. The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) issued the much anticipated "no objection" letter to the GRAS petitions submitted by other companies in December 17, 2008.

The recent approval by Switzerland, Australia and New Zealand of stevia as a food additive is a move in the right direction, the FDA’s no objection letter, and the earlier recommendation in June, 2008 by the Joint Expert Committee on Food Additives (JECFA) for steviol glycosides of 95% purity as a food additive, will give consumers the opportunity to choose zero-calorie, or low-calorie food and beverage products in the near future. Good&Sweet™ meets, or exceeds, JECFA’s specifications for steviol glycosides 95%.

Purity and GRAS self-affirmation

Blue California established a new purity standard for Rebaudioside-A in 2008. High purity was, from the very beginning, the driving force behind the development of this product; we wanted to achieve a degree of purity that would meet, or exceed, FDA’s safety requirements for food products. Good&Sweet is offered at 97% and 99% purity, the highest in today’s market.

Blue California’s GRAS assessment was undertaken in accordance with the FDA’s safety criteria and requirements established in the Federal Register GRAS Notification Procedures of April 2007.

After months of careful review of all available scientific data, including toxicity and stability studies, an independent expert panel of scientists concluded that Good&Sweet Reb-A 97% is safe for use as a general purpose sweetener in a variety of food products. Good&Sweet’s GRAS dossier was signed on December 15, 2008.

Blue California, with its large manufacturing capacity of Reb-A 97% and 99% purity, is ready to help the world market meet the growing demand for Reb-A in 2009 and the coming years.