| Cargill Inc. said Tuesday that the U.S. Food and Drug
Administration has raised no safety concerns about a unique, naturally
occurring sugar the company plans to market in the United States.
Cargill announced in May that it was working with Hayashibara Co. Ltd.
of Japan to determine if there was a market for trehalose in North America
and South America. Hayashibara granted Cargill an exclusive
distributorship to market food grade trehalose throughout the Americas.
Trehalose, about half as sweet as sucrose, can be used as a component
of sweeteners, seasonings, preserved and frozen foods and soft drinks. It
also can be used as a moisture retainer in cosmetics and as a preservative
in pharmaceutical products.
Hayashibara manufactures and markets the sweetener -- which occurs
naturally in mushrooms, yeast, seaweed and lobster -- in Japan.
The consumption of trehalose has increased steadily in Japan since
1994, when Hayashibara developed the first commercially viable process for
producing the sweetener for use in manufacturing prepared foods.
"Using trehalose will create new opportunities for the food
industry," predicted Bruce Leslie, head of Cargill Specialty Food
Ingredients. "We are optimistic about its possibilities as we
continue to evaluate the trehalose market and determine the feasibility of
going into large-scale production."
Minnetonka-based Cargill is an international marketer, processor and
distributor of agricultural, food, financial and industrial products and
services with 85,000 employees in 60 countries. |