Top Norwegian ice cream company chooses Real Stevia™

Norway’s leading ice cream manufacturer Hennig-Olsen has launched its first stevia sweetened ice cream containing Real Stevia™. It is the first stevia-sweetened ice cream in the Norwegian market. With Hennig-Olsen’s stringent quality and safety controls the ice cream has taken over two years to develop. The Real Stevia Company’s products are characterized by high quality and taste and they undergo extensive quality controls and have traceability down to the individual farmer.

Real Stevia™ is used in the Norwegian ice cream manufacturer Hennig-Olsen’s stevia sweetened vanilla ice cream ‘Easy’, which will be the first stevia-sweetened ice cream in the Norwegian market. The popular ice cream manufacturer launched its ice cream sweetened with Real Stevia™ in November. Hennig-Olsen is known for its taste, but also for its strict quality standard. For The Real Stevia Company, whose products under its own brand Real Stevia™ undergoes extensive quality and safety controls with traceability down to the individual farmer, this is proof that the ice cream market has a growing interest in sustainable ingredients with high quality and taste.

• Stevia is an excellent ingredient to use in ice cream, both from a taste and health perspective, and we are delighted that a company like Hennig-Olsen choose our stevia. Choosing a high quality stevia ingredient is reflected in the taste and is as important as choosing quality cocoa beans or grapes to get great tasting chocolate or wine, says Sophia Horn af Rantzien, Managing Director of The Real Stevia Company.

Stevia extract is approximately 300 times sweeter than sugar and is made up steviol glycosides extracted from the stevia plant. Unlike ordinary sugar (sucrose), which consists of one molecule, steviol glycosides are composed of a family of molecules with different properties. This means that the way the leaves are grown and the technology used to produce the extract affects the taste of the end product. The Real Stevia Company is the world leader in organically grown stevia leaves and collaborate with farmers in Paraguay and China to ensure a sustainable agriculture, which is reflected in the taste and quality of the company’s products.

• Transparency and knowledge of the origin of a product is something that is demanded by both food producers and consumers. By having control over the entire production chain from farm to table and making use of a European third party lab gives us the ability to guarantee our customers a safe, sustainable and secure product, says Sophia Horn af Rantzien

Real Stevia™ is already used in many ice creams by producers across Europe. Some examples are, “Weight Watchers”, Alvesta ice cream and Hodell’s quark ice cream.