Life cycle assessment of the sweetness enhancer thaumatin (E957) produced from Thaumatococcus daniellii fruit foraged from West Africa: The SWEET project

Replacing added sugar with non-nutritive sweeteners and sweetness enhancers is of increasing interest due to the negative health effects of excess sugar consumption. Much has been done to understand health and safety of such sweetening additives, but little on their sustainability. This study, part of the Horizon 2020 SWEET project, presents results from the first life cycle assessment of the sweetness enhancer thaumatin, produced from Thaumatococcus daniellii fruit, from forests in West Africa and extracted in the United Kingdom. Thaumatin is used in formulations to increase perceived sweetness of added sugar, allowing some to be removed. Environmental impact is reported for multiple impact categories from the ReCiPe 2016 (H) method, focusing on global warming potential, land use, water consumption, and freshwater eutrophication. Impacts are expressed in terms of product mass and sweetness equivalence. Global warming potential for production of thaumatin is found to be 719.2 kgCO2-eq/kg. When thaumatin replaces 20% of added sugar, environmental impact for a given sweetness is found to reduce by an average of 19.4% across all impact categories. International transport is a major contributor to global warming potential, as is aril removal from the fruit to freshwater eutrophication and water use, and fruit foraging to land use. However, land use is identified as a key area of future research to improve uncertainty in the data. Results show that thaumatin can be used to reduce the environmental impact of providing sweet taste in food and beverage products.