OAK BROOK, ILL. — PureCircle Ltd. and Tereos have formed a joint venture, Tereos PureCircle Solutions, to produce stevia extracts.

The joint venture will develop and market a portfolio of high-purity stevia extracts and sweetening solutions that combine sugar and stevia extracts, enabling food and beverage companies to launch reduced-calorie products. Tereos is the second largest sugar beet processor in Europe and is an exporter of refined sugar from Brazil.

“Stevia’s great taste and performance synergies with sugar provide excellent product innovation choices for our global food and beverage clients,” said Magomet Malsagov, president and chief executive officer of PureCircle. “In Tereos group we have a partner who shares our vision of how the combination can be developed with scale internationally.”

Tereos PureCircle Solutions in Europe is a 50/50 joint venture between the two companies and will market the products across France, Belgium, Czech Republic and Italy as well other European markets. The partnership may also take advantage of Tereos’ position in Brazil to access that market as well.

“We see sugar’s partnership with stevia as an excellent opportunity for enhancing our product portfolio and attending to customers that look for natural sweetening solutions,” said Philippe Duval, chief executive officer of Tereos. “For entering into such a partnership, PureCircle was our natural choice.”