Joanna Cosgrove05.03.10
The diminutive little stevia leaf may be naturally sweeter than conventional table sugar, but successfully getting it into the hands of an American consumer set plagued with rising obesity and diabetes rates has been anything but sweet. Jim May, widely regarded as the “Father of Stevia,” is largely credited with commercially introducing the plant and its many benefits to the U.S. He recently sat down with Nutraceuticals World to discuss the plant’s rich history and the 27 years worth of effort it’s taken to deliver the good news about this plant to the masses.
Stevia rebaudiana is an herb in the Compositae family that grows as a small shrub in parts of Paraguay and Brazil. The glycosides in its leaves make it incredibly sweet, a property that is unique among the nearly 300 species of stevia plants. Stevia has been used to sweeten beverages and medicines (including yerba mate preparations) since Pre-Colombian times. A scientist named Antonio Bertoni first recorded its usage by native tribes in 1887, where the whole leaf was said to kill many harmful bacteria and viruses when taken internally, and when used topically, it was said to be an effective skin softener with the power to tighten skin and heal wounds.
Entrepreneurial Adventure
In 1982, Jim May was an End Stage Renal Disease Consultant, having helped create the Artificial Organs and Transplant program at Good Samaritan Hospital in Phoenix, while serving as the executive director and member of the Board of Directors of the Arizona Kidney Foundation, and consultant to the Chief of the government’s End Stage Renal Disease (ESRD) program in Washington, D.C.
A chance encounter changed Mr. May’s career trajectory. Now the founder and president of Gilbert, AZ-based Wisdom Natural Brands, the producer of SweetLeaf brand stevia products and Wisdom of the Ancients herbal teas, he recalled his initial introduction to stevia during a get together with friends, where he met a Peace Corps worker who’d just returned from Paraguay. The gentleman tried to convince Mr. May that native Paraguayan Indians made an herbal tea that cured colds and flu in one day. Unconvinced, Mr. May dismissed the notion but was intrigued when the undeterred acquaintance produced a small bag of green stevia leaves and coaxed May to taste the leaf. “It was sweet and delicious, the longer I held it in my mouth the sweeter it got,” he recalled. “Having hooked me, he pulled out a stack of scientific documents about stevia from Japan.”
As it turned out, the documents detailed not just Japan’s history with stevia, but also the U.S.’s domestic interest in stevia, which dated back to WWII—a time when sugar was scarce and heavily rationed. “Our NIH and Great Britain were doing research on stevia, thinking it could become the substitute to sugar but the war ended before the research was complete,” explained Mr. May. “The Japanese were 100% importers of stevia and they sent farmers and researchers to Paraguay to learn everything about it. They brought back seedlings and seeds to Japan and perfected the plants, did research and learned and perfected extraction methodologies using chemical solvents, ethanol and methanol. When I was reading those reports in 1982, stevia enjoyed a 40% market share in Japan.”
The demand for the white powder stevia extract grew so great that Japan didn’t have the land to grow the leaves, so it outsourced the growing to Chinese farmers. Today China is the world’s leading producer of stevia plants and extracts, producing about 80% of world’s supply.
So in 1982, after having invested his life savings in the product, Mr. May took his Paraguayan stevia leaves to FDA to find out what he had to do to market it to American consumers. “They said they knew all about stevia and considered it to be perfectly safe,” he said, “so I developed labels and sold it to health food stores.”
In 1985, just as his business was getting off the ground, Vegetarian Times wrote a small article about Mr. May and his stevia business—which he said was seen by a large pharmaceutical company that kicked off nearly a decade of bureaucratic and legal tussling between Mr. May, the pharmaceutical company, the FDA and a high profile lawyer-turned politician that eventually concluded with Mr. May agreeing to cease importing his dark liquid stevia concentrate into the U.S. to be sold as a sweetener. Incidentally, he added, this all happened during the same time aspartame was working to gain approval as a sweetener.
Then in 1993, just one year prior to the passage of DSHEA in 1994, Mr. May went to Washington and met with John McCain and his Arizona congressional colleagues to argue that he was a victim of Restraintive Trade.
Then end result of his efforts culminated with stevia being permitted for sale as a dietary supplement. “One of the caveats was that we couldn’t inform consumers that it tasted sweet or could be used as a sweetener,” he said. “If we used the word ‘sweet’ to describe it, it would be considered adulterated. That’s when I came up with the brand name SweetLeaf.”
Building a Business
With his bureaucratic troubles behind him, Mr. May forged ahead with the goal of creating top quality stevia leaf products and extracts for the U.S. market.
Mr. May diligently adhered to his environmental principles and devised a proprietary extraction process that used only cool, purified water instead of solvents or alcohol derivatives. The product does not contain sucralose or aspartame, which are commonly found in other name-brand artificial sweeteners. And because the production process imbues no chemical or alcohol-produced bitterness, there is no need no bad aftertaste so therefore no masking or flavoring agents are needed.
Wisdom Natural Brands’ commitment to quality also extended beyond the production process to include sustainable production of stevia plants, which also support the emerging economies of South America. And because no chemicals, solvents or alcohols are used in the extraction process or purification, there is no waste. The leaf residue becomes cattle feed or ground mulch. The spent water is reserved in large tanks and given to local farmers, who then fill tanker trucks with the highly nutritive water and use it to irrigate their growing crops.
In 2008, an independent panel of scientists, awarded SweetLeaf Stevia GRAS (Generally Regarded as Safe) status for SweetLeaf Sweetener, his sweetening product that contains just two ingredients: stevia and inulin, a natural vegetable soluble fiber. The GRAS status enabled SweetLeaf to be labelled as sweetener and to officially use the word “sweet” on its packaging to describe its product.
In 2009, Mr. May took his GRAS status one step further by obtaining a concurring opinion from the Life Science Research Office (LSRO), who independently agreed with GRAS Associates’ original findings. The FDA granted a no-questions letter to SweetLeaf’s GRAS status in 2009.
SweetLeaf Sweetener is 100% natural with zero calories, zero carbohydrates and zero glycemic index. It is sold in convenient double-serving packets, in boxes containing either 50 or 100 packets. Because quality stevia leaves are 30 times sweeter than sugar in their unprocessed form and the pure glycosides extracted from the leaves can be 250 to 400 times sweeter than sugar, each packet of SweetLeaf Sweetener replaces two teaspoons of sugar. The product is also sold in a shaker bottle for home use and dissolvable tablets for on-the-go use.
Wisdom Natural Brands recently expanded its stevia product offerings with the launch of a line of flavored stevia drops that include Chocolate, Vanilla Creme, Lemon Drop, English Toffee, Cinnamon, Valencia Orange, Grape, Berry, and Root Beer. A few drops can be added to sweeten and flavor water, coffee, tea, yogurt, cocktails, whipped cream, smoothies and ice cubes.
