Ten years ago a group of entrepreneurs gathered together to begin a project that focused on the development of a sweet herb that they believed would become a natural replacement to sugar. Sugar was becoming an overused ingredient that combined with other harmful substances, waas affecting world health. So harmful in fact that the World Health Organization wanted to have a suggested daily intake warning in regards to sugar consumption. This warning never came to be. The United States Government threatened to withdraw its massive funding budget to the organization if the warning was implemented. Powerful lobbying by the sugar cartels won the day, temporarily.

During the last ten years Stevia consumption has been limited to those people living in countries where Stevia is approved as a food ingredient. Countries such as Japan have benefited by the legal status of Stevia. The anti Stevia lobbying has continued for many years in the Western countries as well as the EU. Approved in North America as a dietary supplement, low grade bad tasting Stevia has been available in health food stores with modest sales growth. With the development of higher quality products with a much improved flavor, Stevia began catching the interest of those large corporations as a possible replacement to sugar and artificial sweeteners. This is motivated by market research that showed overwhelmingly that consumers were turning away from high calorie sugar products, and did not trust the safety of artificial sweeteners such as Aspartame and Splenda. Diabetes and Obesity has reached epidemic proportions among the adult population and perhaps most alarmingly affects our children in numbers that now confirm epidemic levels.

At Stevia Canada we knew time would bring about change. The clock was ticking. When the big players became involved, things would change in a big way. Well, big they are. Coca cola and Cargill announced their joint venture to develop beverages and food products with Stevia as the natural sweetener ingredient, called Rebiana. Others have followed. As we become more involved with stevia coming into the main stream market place, it is safe to say that the time of stevia, has arrived.

Working with Stevia Canada and JG Group, SGI has spent time in India organizing the Stevia growers with a goal of becoming the leading supplier of Stevia leaf. The ultimate plan is to grow, process, and market high quality Stevia within India and to the world. This project has been a massive undertaking and continues in order to meet demands both present and future.