Precision-fermented sweet proteins: Can they replace sugar?

From Chicago to Singapore, one topic continues to dominate conversations in food innovation: sugar reduction.

Having attended food innovation events across Europe and North America over the past few years, I have noticed one recurring theme appearing in conference presentations, exhibitor booths, investor discussions, and conversations with food manufacturers alike: how can we reduce sugar consumption without sacrificing taste?

The question is more relevant than ever. Excessive sugar intake is associated with obesity, type 2 diabetes, cardiovascular diseases, and several other public health challenges. Governments are introducing sugar taxes, consumers are paying closer attention to nutritional labels, and food manufacturers are actively seeking new ways to develop healthier products.

Yet one significant challenge remains. Consumers still want products that taste good.

This is where a new generation of sweetening technologies is attracting growing attention. Among the most intriguing are sweet proteins, especially those produced through precision fermentation.

The long search for better sweetness

The food industry has explored sugar alternatives for decades. Artificial sweeteners such as aspartame, sucralose, and acesulfame-K have enabled substantial sugar reduction across many product categories. More recently, naturally derived alternatives such as stevia and monk fruit have gained popularity among consumers seeking more natural ingredients.

Each solution offers advantages, but also formulation challenges. Some sweeteners may introduce bitterness, metallic notes or lingering aftertastes. Others perform well in beverages but less effectively in dairy, confectionery, or bakery applications. Food developers therefore continue searching for ingredients that can replicate what consumers value most about sugar: a clean, pleasant and familiar sweetness.

Few consumers realise that nature has already developed another possible answer. Certain plants and fungi naturally produce proteins that taste intensely sweet.

These proteins activate the human sweet taste receptor at very low concentrations, although their sensory behaviour differs from sucrose. Some sweet proteins may not taste sweet immediately or sweetness can linger much longer, sometimes described as a "tail". From a biochemical sense, sweet proteins are proteins, and their performance during food processing depends strongly on the chracteristics of the individual protein. They may be sensitive to heat processing, low pH or storage conditions.

This matters because sweet proteins are unlikely to become a universal replacement for all existing sweeteners. A more realistic future is a broader toolbox of solutions, in which sugar, stevia, monk fruit, sweet proteins and other novel ingredients are combined according to nutritional, technical and sensory goals of each product.

Nature made sweet proteins first

Some of the best-known sweet proteins include:

Brazzein

Originally discovered in the fruit of a West African plant Pentadiplandra brazzeana, brazzein is one of the most promising sweet proteins for food applications. It is intensely sweet with a sweetness profile that closely resembles sucrose and it is notably resistant to heat and a broad range of pH conditions, qualities that have made it an attractive candidate for beverages, confectionery, and nutritional products.

Thaumatin

Derived from the katemfe fruit (Thaumatococcus daniellii), thaumatin has been used by the food industry for decades. It functions both as a sweetener and a flavour modifier and is authorised as a food additive E957 in the EU. mask bitterness, making it valuable in reduced-sugar formulations and flavour systems.

Monellin

Monellin is another intensely sweet protein originating from West African fruit. Its naturally occurring form has limitations in heat and pH stability, but protein engineering is enabling more robust variants that could be better suited to industrial food processing.

Miraculin

Often referred to as the protein in "miracle fruit", miraculin works differently than traditional sweeteners. It has little sweetness of its own at neutral pH. Rather than tasting sweet itself, it alters taste perception, making sour, acidic foods taste sweet. It is less a conventional sugar substitute than a reminder of just how inventive biology can be when it comes to taste.

Precision fermentation changes the economics of sweeteners

For decades, many sweet proteins remained largely scientific curiosities. Their sensory properties were fascinating, while extracting enough protein from tropical plants fruits for large-scale food production presented an obvious commercial obstacle.

Precision fermentation is changing that equation.

Instead of cultivating large quantities of the original plant, developers can use microorganisms such as yeast as production hosts, programming them to produce the desired proteins in fermentation tanks.

This approach offers several advantages:

• Consistent quality

• Commercial-scale production

• Reduced agricultural land and resource use

• Greater control over production

• Improved sustainability

• Reduced dependence on exotic crop cultivation

• Opportunities to optimise protein properties through protein engineering

The same underlying technology, fermentation, is already being used to produce food ingredients, enzymes and other biological products. Precision fermentation adds the ability to produce highly specific molecules, including proteins that may previously have been available only in tiny amounts from nature.

For sweet proteins, that could be the difference between an interesting biological phenomenon and a commercially useful ingredient.

Emerging innovators are bringing sweet proteins to market

Several companies are now helping transform sweet proteins from research concepts into commercial ingredients.

Oobli has been one of the pioneers in commercialising precision-fermented sweet proteins. Its brazzein sweet protein received an FDA “no questions” letter under the GRAS process in 2024, supporting its use as a general-purpose sweetener in foods and beverages in the US.

MycoTechnology is developing a different type of sweet protein derived from the honey truffle. The company is known primarily for mushroom-derived taste modulation technologies and produces the protein using Komagataella phaffii through precision fermentation, and published safety research on the ingredient in 2026. The company has since announced commercial-scale market entry in the US.

Amai Proteins has attracted significant attention with its proprietary sweet protein platform, and its lead ingredient sweelin®, which has been designed to enable substantial reductions in added sugar while maintaining a desirable sensory profile. The monellin-based protein is produced through precision fermentation and is designed to improve stability and formulation performance. In February 2026, the company announced that the FDA had completed its review of its GRAS notice with no questions regarding the intended use of sweelin® as a general sweetener.

Closer to us, Finland's Sweeprot project shows how European research and innovation ecosystems are contributing to next-generation sweetening technologies. Developed at the University of Oulu, Sweeprot is a protein-based sweetener currently being prepared for commercialisation through a Business Finland-funded Research-to-Business project.