PURE.L Regulatory News (PURE)

PURECIRCLE LIMITED

PureCircle Announces Plans to Commercialize High Purity Reb D

PureCircle (LSE: PURE) the world's leading producer and marketer of high purity stevia ingredients today announces it has reached a major milestone as the company prepares to commercialize its latest stevia innovation, PureCircle's high purity Reb D. Following a detailed safety evaluation by an independent Expert Panel, PureCircle's high purity Reb D has received self-affirmed GRAS status, and PureCircle has elected to formally submit its GRAS notification to the FDA for the agency's additional safety review.

PureCircle research has identified high purity Reb D as having one of the best sweetness profiles of any steviol glycoside from the stevia leaf. The clean sweetness of PureCircle's high purity Reb D will further enable customers to develop naturally sweetened formulations with very low to no calories, particularly in food and beverages with higher sweetness levels, such as carbonated soft drinks. Its commercialization will play an integral role in extending the company's breakthrough Stevia 3.0 innovation platform alongside other next generation innovations, such as PureCircle Alpha, SG95 and PureCircle flavor NSF-02.

PureCircle Reb D commercialization follows more than a decade of research and development that takes advantage of breakthroughs across the company's entire vertically integrated supply chain. The development is made possible in result of discoveries through PureCircle's Comprehensive Breeding Program involving in-house and partner (3rd party) breeding centers, its agricultural investment across Paraguay, Kenya, China and the United States and industry leading extraction and purification capabilities. In addition to proprietary high Reb D content leaf varieties, PureCircle has now secured process, method and application patents to protect this new innovation, including a suite of more than 25 patents and patent applications for the ingredient.

PureCircle has begun collaborating with several customers on product development, with primary focus on initial introductions in the United States. Substantial investments are focused on scaling this new technology with plans for targeted market introduction as early as the second half of 2013.

Commenting on the development, Magomet Malsagov, Chief Executive Officer for PureCircle said, "With PureCircle's Stevia 3.0 platform we are bringing our customers the next generation of stevia solutions. We are confident that PureCircle's Reb D introduction will be a powerful new addition to this platform and will unlock new reduced and zero calorie food and beverage solutions. Over the past two years, we have dramatically accelerated the pace of new stevia solutions to the global market. PureCircle was founded on the knowledge that the stevia leaf is a vast source of innovation and we continue to have a rich pipeline of future solutions to come."

About PureCircle

PureCircle (www.purecircle.com) is the global leader in production and marketing of high purity stevia ingredients. PureCircle leads the industry with development of a vertically integrated, sustainable and natural supply chain. Stevia is grown for PureCircle across South America, Africa, Asia and the United States where it provides a sustainable cash crop for farming communities. PureCircle has developed a broad portfolio of ingredient solutions and has pioneered such ingredients as Reb A, SG95, and breakthrough proprietary ingredient PureCircle Alpha, as well as PureCircle Flavors. PureCircle also established joint venture partnerships with sugar industry leaders to innovatively combine stevia and sugar for natural sweetening solutions and locally support customers. These global partnerships include Natural Sweet Ventures, with Imperial Sugar in the US, as well as Tereos PureCircle Solutions, with Tereos and NPSweet A/S with Nordzucker, in Europe. As part of its industry leadership, PureCircle pioneered the trust mark Stevia PureCircle®, which educates consumers about the benefits of stevia and provides a strong base of trust for both consumers and food and beverage companies alike. The company also founded The Global Stevia Institute, (globalsteviainstitute.com) the leading resource for accurate, science-based information on stevia led by a global advisory board of internationally recognized health professionals. PureCircle's global headquarters are in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. PureCircle shares are traded on the LSE AIM index.