According to the statistics of InnovaDatabase, an authoritative data organization, from January to May 2015, 187 new products using Monk fruit sweetener were released in the US market, an increase of 140% over the same period last year; and in the whole of last year, the growth rate of new products using Monk Fruit Sweetener in the US market was as high as 70% over the previous year. With such a high and sustained growth rate, the development prospects of monk fruit cannot help but attract people's attention.

When it comes to monk fruit, many people's first reaction is its traditional medicinal and health functions such as clearing away heat and detoxification, resolving phlegm and relieving cough, clearing the lungs and moistening the intestines, and promoting the production of body fluids and quenching thirst. However, abroad, especially in Europe and the United States, people's understanding of monk fruit starts with its "non-traditional" effects: the sweet substance contained in monk fruit - mogroside. Due to its strong sweetness (300 times sweeter than sucrose), no calories, pure natural, good taste and other properties, in recent years, mogroside has gone from being little known in Europe and the United States to being widely accepted by the food and beverage industry, becoming an ideal natural and healthy sugar substitute sweetener.

Because people in the region prefer sweet foods, traditionally, Western societies, represented by the United States, have used a large amount of sugar as a sweetener in the food and beverage industry. However, as the large intake of sugars has led to serious health problems such as obesity, diabetes, and dental caries, Western society has launched an "anti-sugar movement," and zero-calorie, low-cost artificial sweeteners such as acesulfame potassium, aspartame, and sucralose have gradually emerged. However, in the process, many safety hazards and controversies of artificial sweeteners have been heard.

Since the beginning of the 21st century, along with the various debates on the health disadvantages of traditional sugars and the safety hazards of emerging artificial sweeteners, the food and beverage industry has gradually turned its attention to natural sweeteners that have the dual advantages of zero calories (low calories) and health. Stevioside extracted from stevia has become the first natural sweetener to be widely used, and has developed rapidly and attracted widespread attention. However, stevioside has an insurmountable weakness: it has a noticeable bitter aftertaste after entering the mouth, which affects the taste of food and beverages. Monk fruit sweeteners have multiple advantages such as zero calories, good taste, and pure naturalness, so they have become the new darling of the food and beverage industry in recent years, and can be called the most ideal natural sweetener at present.

In fact, monk fruit sweeteners have not only attracted attention in recent years, and their research history can even be traced back to decades ago. As early as 1975, Dr. CH Lee published a paper in a British scientific journal indicating that mogroside is the component of the sweetness of monk fruit. In the early 1990s, Procter & Gamble developed a method for producing monk fruit juice sweeteners and applied for a patent for it. However, due to factors such as technical stability, lack of supply chain support and the scale of demand at the time, monk fruit sweeteners were not commercialized at the time.

Monk fruit sweeteners were truly introduced to the market in the early 21st century. Guilin Jifusi Monk Fruit Co., Ltd. (formerly Guilin Jifusi Biotechnology Co., Ltd.), established in Guilin, Guangxi, the origin and main production area of Monk Fruit, successfully broke through the bottlenecks of extraction technology, efficiency, product stability, etc., established a complete Monk Fruit supply chain system for the first time, and launched the first batch of Monk Fruit sweetener products that can be used for large-scale commercial purposes to the market, laying a solid foundation for the rapid and stable development of the Monk Fruit sweetener industry, and thus once again stimulated the interest of international companies such as Coca-Cola, Pepsi, Nestle and Cargill in Monk Fruit. After that, with Guilin Jifusi Monk Fruit Co., Ltd. successfully passing the FDA (U.S. Food and Drug Administration) certification in the United States for the first time in January 2010, it obtained the golden key to open the U.S. market for Monk Fruit sweeteners, and officially blew the horn for Monk Fruit sweeteners to enter the overseas market on a large scale.

Perhaps, we can get a glimpse of the market development history and trend of monk fruit sweetener from the following set of figures: before obtaining FDA certification in 2010, the demand for monk fruit sweetener in the US market was only 10 tons per year; after obtaining FDA certification, its annual demand quickly increased to 20 tons in 2011 and 40 tons in 2012, and it is estimated that the demand will increase to about 80 tons in 2015.

The hot momentum of monk fruit sweeteners is not only reflected in the exponential growth in demand. As a fruit-based natural sweetener product with zero calories, good taste, safety and no side effects, the high added value of monk fruit sweeteners has won the favor of many large and high-quality companies in the food and beverage industry, including large cereal brands such as Cass Cereals (a brand under Kellogg's), Nectresse brand under Johnson & Johnson, Chobani, a leading Greek yogurt company in the United States, Bolthouse Farms (a brand under Campbell Soup), Highland Dairy (the largest dairy joint venture in the United States), Nestle, FreshPure, Coca-Cola (Zico brand), General Mills' brands Yoplait and Starbucks, etc., all use monk fruit sweetener products for the improvement of their existing products and new products. Of course, the pioneers of the category naturally get the biggest rewards. With the advantage of first-mover advantage and more stable product quality and supply, Giffords almost monopolized high-quality brand enterprise customers, and has long occupied more than 70% of the monk fruit sweetener market. The market share has become the world's largest monk fruit sweetener company.

There are signs that monk fruit sweeteners have entered a period of explosive growth, and have become a new "potential stock" in the sweetener industry after stevia. The development trend of monk fruit sweeteners has also spread from abroad to China. For example, although it is still in the market development stage, one of the monk fruit sweetener products, monk fruit juice, has successfully won the favor of large companies including Uni-President Group, and is currently in short supply.

As for the development trend and market prospects of monk fruit sweeteners, the monk fruit sweetener industry is also full of confidence. The world's leader and largest manufacturer and supplier of monk fruit sweeteners, Guilin Jifusi Monk Fruit Co., Ltd., has stated that it will massively expand the purchase of raw materials and production capacity, and continue to focus on the monk fruit sweetener industry.