At the VDNH exhibition, EFKO presented ice cream based on an innovative sweetener

Valery Falkov admitted that if he had not been told that ice cream did not contain sugar, he would not have understood. And Andrei Fursenko compared the innovative dessert with the Soviet ice cream “Zabava” and added that it tastes like a delicious school dessert.

“Science plays a key role in ensuring national security and the competitiveness of the Russian economy. We are entering the third year of the decade of science and technology and the role of scientific knowledge will only increase, – says Andrei Fursenko, assistant to the President of the Russian Federation. — In fact, there are interesting solutions in medicine and nutrition. If the sweet protein project is implemented, it will be a breakthrough. We need to help developers overcome all the necessary regulatory issues. This is not easy, but they will definitely do it; business representatives have already been doing it. “I think now the authorities will also get involved in this.”.

Let us remember that, under natural conditions, sweet proteins were discovered at the end of the 20th century in plants from equatorial Africa. They are about two thousand times sweeter than sugar. However, its content in plants is so low that its extraction would not be economically viable. Within two years, EFKO managed to obtain the sweet protein brazzein in the laboratory. It does not cause an insulin response in the blood and has the potential to solve the sweetness problem for diabetics.

“You can talk a lot about health, but if healthy products do not have flavor, they will not be in demand. — says Rostislav Kovalevsky, innovation director at EFKO. — All key stages of research on sweet proteins have already been successfully completed. “We have no doubt that certification will be obtained in Russia, it is a matter of the near future.”.