Food Navigator: Elo to commercialize new high-intensity plant-based sweetener … with sweeter, cleaner taste

North Carolina based Elo Life Systems aims to commercialize a new natural high-intensity sweetener “inspired by monk fruit” that boasts a “cleaner” taste profile, more affordable price tag, and a higher sweetness intensity than monk fruit extracts currently on the market.

Elo​ – which was spun out of biotech firm Precision Bio in December 2021 – deploys a variety of plant breeding technologies including a propriety gene editing platform called ARCUS, and is best known for its work with Dole to retool the DNA of the ubiquitous Cavendish banana plant variety to resist the Fusarium wilt fungal disease that is threatening the future of the fruit.