article

Rethinking sweetener production

Natural sweeteners are an important health management tool for many as they contain fewer calories than sugar and some can even support dental and diabetic health. However, most natural sweeteners are manufactured using chemical processes. Here, Co-founder and COO at ArcitekBio Jai Lad explores the opportunities for developing a circular economy to make healthy sweeteners with biological processing of plant-derived by-products.

In a circular economy, nothing is wasted, as by-products from one industry can be used to develop another valuable product. This reduces the need to extract raw materials, such as fossil fuels, as everything is being recycled or reused.

At ARCITEKBio we convert agricultural by‑products like straw into the natural sweetener xylitol. Xylitol is traditionally manufactured using chemical processes that require toxic catalysts, high temperatures and produce a lot of effluent waste. Production using our sustainable biotech process, however, can vastly reduce greenhouse gas emissions and the associated energy requirements while adding value to agricultural wastes or by‑products.