Hershey’s together with American Sugar Refining Inc (ASR) have together made a Series B Investment (the ‘B’ refers a second major investment, after the Series A) in a company called Bonumose, Inc.
Bonumose is developing plant based sweeteners and other plant based food ingredients.
The company has patents on a number of processes to produce high-purity rare sugars including tagatose and allulose which have lower calories, and crucial for a neo-diabetic world we live in, a low glycemic impact, than alternatives.
Glycemic impact otherwise known as ‘glycemic load’ is how fast the sugar impacts the bloodstream, spiking insulin and contributing to type 2 diabetes issues.
Bonumose’s science team is led by Dr Daniel Wichelecki, Chief Scientific Officer, Co-Founder, and primary inventor for Bonumose’s patented process for affordable tagatose and allulose production.
Bonumose has patents granted or allowed in the U.S., Japan, Korea, Europe, Mexico, China, and many other countries. Previous investors include Bangchak, iSelect Fund, Argonautic Ventures, Applied Food Sciences, Cure8 Ventures, NextGen Nutrition Investment Fund and a Japan-based food company.
“As an industry leader, Hershey remains committed to giving consumers a broad portfolio that offers the choices they seek to meet their many snacking needs,
Hershey’s is hoping the new sugars will offer more of the natural mouthfeel and experience of regular sugar, without the negative impact.
In the US, this will also help them move towards being compliant with strict vegans, who have often complained of the way sugar is processed in North America that involves bone filtering’. Sugar outside the US is not usually bone filtered.
