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By Thom King, CFS, Founder, Chairman, Chief Innovation Officer Icon Foods

Formulators spend an extraordinary amount of time asking the wrong question about high-intensity sweeteners, how sweet is it? That’s useful, but it isn’t enough. The better question is: when does the sweetness arrive, what happens while it’s in the mouth, and how does it leave? Because consumers don’t experience sweetness as a number. They experience it over time.

Sucrose remains the sensory benchmark because its sweetness curve is remarkably well behaved. It comes on quickly, reaches its peak without a lot of drama, then gets out of the way. Many high-intensity sweeteners don’t behave that politely. They can arrive late, peak in the wrong place, bring bitterness or other side tastes along for the ride, and hang around after the rest of the flavor has packed its bags.

That is exactly the formulation problem Thaumatiq™ V10 and Thaumatiq™ R10 are designed to attack. Both systems combine a sweet protein platform with a complementary high-intensity sweetener architecture, but they are tuned differently. Thaumatiq™ V10 is built around monk fruit plus thaumatin. Thaumatiq™ R10 is built around Reb M plus thaumatin.

That difference creates two distinct formulation tools.

V10 vs. R10 at a Glance

Neither system should be viewed as simply a stronger or weaker version of the other. They solve different sensory problems.

Meet the Sweet Protein: Thaumatin

Thaumatin is a family of intensely sweet proteins associated with the West African katemfe fruit, Thaumatococcus daniellii. FDA describes thaumatin as approximately 2,000–3,000 times sweeter than sucrose, although apparent potency varies significantly with concentration and food matrix.

That number gets attention. But potency isn’t the most interesting thing about thaumatin. Its real value to a formulator is its ability to participate in the temporal and qualitative architecture of sweetness and flavor. In other words, don’t think of thaumatin simply as another high-intensity sweetener.

Think of it as a sweetness-shaping and flavor-modulation tool. Used correctly, it can help extend sweetness, support flavor perception and bridge gaps between the front, middle and back portions of the sensory experience. Used incorrectly, you can create exactly what nobody ordered, a sweetness tail with its own zip code. Dose is key.

Sweetness Is a Movie, Not a Photograph

Imagine plotting perceived sweetness against time. Sucrose gives us something close to the reference curve, fast onset → smooth peak → progressive decay → clean finish. High-intensity sweeteners frequently depart from that profile. That means sugar replacement should not be approached simply as, 10% sugar sweetness = X ppm high-intensity sweetener. That’s spreadsheet formulation. The mouth didn’t get the spreadsheet. The better objective is to reconstruct the shape of the sucrose experience.

Conceptual Sweetness Curve: Thaumatiq™ V10

V10 combines monk fruit with the temporal contribution of thaumatin. Conceptually, I would expect the curve to behave something like this, initial sweetness → broad mid-palate → sustained sweetness → controlled finish

The monk fruit component contributes the primary sweetening character while thaumatin helps carry perception through the later part of the sensory curve. That makes V10 particularly interesting where the product already contains aromatic or flavor components capable of integrating with monk fruit’s sensory character. Think:

• Berry
• Citrus
• tropical fruit
• chocolate
• vanilla
• caramel
• dairy
• confectionery

In those applications, we’re not necessarily trying to make every molecule disappear. We’re trying to make the sweetness belong there.

Conceptual Sweetness Curve: Thaumatiq™ R10

R10 uses Reb M with thaumatin. That changes the job description. Reb M is particularly useful where the formulator wants a cleaner, more neutral sweetness profile with less of the characteristic sensory baggage associated with older steviol glycoside systems. The objective becomes, clean onset → defined peak → supported mid-palate → managed finish. R10 therefore becomes particularly attractive when the formulator wants the sweetening system to stay backstage. Think:

• clear beverages
• carbonated beverages
• energy drinks
• hydration products
• protein beverages
• nutritional products
• functional beverages
• powdered drink mixes

In these applications, the sweetener shouldn’t be auditioning for a speaking role. It should do its job and leave.

The Big Formulation Insight: Don’t Ask Which One Is Better

Neither. That’s the wrong question. One should ask, what is wrong with the sweetness curve in the product I’m trying to fix? If the formulation has plenty of front-end sweetness but collapses through the middle, that’s one problem.  If it tastes good initially but leaves an objectionable sweet tail, that’s another. If the sweetness is technically correct but feels disconnected from the flavor system, that’s another. Different disease. Different medicine.

When I Would Reach for V10

I’d start evaluating Thaumatiq™ V10 when the application is:

Fruit Forward

Monk fruit can integrate beautifully with fruit systems where its sensory character has somewhere useful to go.

Fruit beverages, smoothies, fruit preparations, gummies, jams, sauces and flavored dairy products are logical candidates.

Chocolate and Cocoa

Cocoa gives formulators a fairly forgiving sensory playground. Bitterness, roasted notes and lingering flavor provide room for complex high-intensity sweetener systems to work.

Dairy and Frozen Desserts

Vanilla, chocolate, caramel and fruit systems can benefit from the rounded sweetness architecture possible with V10.

Bakery

Where sweetness is part of a larger flavor system rather than the entire show, V10 can become useful for maintaining perceived sweetness after sucrose reduction.

Condiments and Sauces

BBQ sauce, ketchup, sweet chili, teriyaki and similar applications frequently benefit from blended sweetening rather than relying on a single high-intensity sweetener.

When I Would Reach for R10

R10 would be my first bench pull when clean sweetness and flavor neutrality are the primary objectives.

Carbonated Beverages

Carbonation is ruthless. It exposes sweetness timing, bitterness and lingering aftertaste very quickly. R10 gives the formulator a logical starting architecture for building a cleaner beverage sweetness profile.

Energy Drinks

Acid, caffeine, vitamins, botanicals and functional ingredients already provide plenty of sensory chaos. The sweetener doesn’t need to add another bar fight.

Protein Beverages

Protein systems frequently contain their own bitterness, astringency, sulfur notes or drying characteristics. A cleaner sweetening platform provides room for targeted modulation rather than stacking one masking problem on another.

Hydration and Electrolyte Products

These products often live in delicate citrus and fruit profiles where excessive sweetness linger becomes obvious.

Powdered Beverages

R10 is also well suited to dry systems where controlled dosing and clean flavor are important.

Neither Product Replaces Sugar’s Physical Function

This is critical. High-intensity sweeteners replace sweetness only. They do not automatically replace:

• solids
• viscosity
• water activity effects
• freezing-point depression
• crystallization behavior
• humectancy
• browning
• Maillard participation
• Bulk
• mouthfeel

This is where many sugar-reduction projects go sideways. The formulator removes 10% sucrose and replaces its sweetness with a tiny amount of high-intensity sweetener. Technically, the sweetness is back. Everything else is gone. That’s not sugar reduction. That’s ingredient subtraction.

For deeper reductions, V10 or R10 should usually be considered part of a sweetening system, not the entire system. Bulk sweeteners rebuild the physical architecture. High-intensity sweeteners rebuild the sensory architecture. Completely different jobs.

Best Practices

1. Start Low

Thaumatin-containing systems reward restraint. Don’t begin by asking how much you can use. Ask, what’s the minimum amount that fixes the problem? Overshooting can create excessive sweetness persistence and lingering.

2. Evaluate Over Time

If your sensory panel swallows the sample and immediately scores sweetness, you’re missing half the movie. Evaluate, initial sweetness, early mid-palate, late mid-palate, finish and residual sweetness. You’re looking for onset, peak, decay and persistence. The finish is frequently where high-intensity sweetener systems win or lose.

3. Test in the Actual Matrix

Water screening is useful. Water screening is not formulation. Acid, protein, fat, cocoa, coffee, fruit flavor, carbonation, minerals and processing all change sensory perception. Your final judge is the finished food or beverage.

4. Build From the Sugar Backbone Outward

Where deeper sugar reduction is required, establish the physical system first. Determine what the bulk sweetener, fiber, polyol, hydrocolloid or other structural components are doing. Then use V10 or R10 to close the sweetness gap. That generally produces a better result than trying to make a high-intensity system carry the whole formulation on its back.

5. Watch Your Tail

Thaumatin is powerful. That doesn’t mean more is better. The goal is not maximum persistence. The goal is, enough persistence to complete the sweetness curve without announcing itself. Not the bigger the glob the better the job.

Suggested Bench-Screening Strategy

Rather than prescribing a universal finished-product dosage, build an application-specific screening ladder around the desired sugar reduction. For example: Control → Low → Medium → High. Then evaluate each treatment for:

1. sweetness onset
2. peak sweetness
3. mid-palate continuity
4. bitterness
5. metallic character
6. flavor enhancement or suppression
7. sweetness linger
8. overall similarity to the full-sugar control

Once the correct neighborhood is identified, tighten the increments. Don’t hunt ppm blindly. Bracket first. Then optimize.

Labeling

Labeling should reflect the actual ingredients and regulatory identity of the commercial product, not the internal development formula or trade-name architecture.

For finished foods and beverages, the ingredient declaration should be built from the appropriate common or usual names of the ingredients used and verified against the final product specification and applicable regulatory requirements.

For a V10-based system, that may include ingredients corresponding to: thaumatin and monk fruit extract. For an R10-based system, that may include ingredients corresponding to: thaumatin and steviol glycosides.

Any carrier or processing aid that requires declaration should also be evaluated according to its regulatory status and function in the finished product. The final declaration should always be confirmed against the commercial specification. Don’t reverse-engineer your ingredient statement from marketing copy.  That’s how perfectly good formulations acquire lawyers.

What About “Natural”?

Be careful.  “Natural” is one of those wonderful food-industry words that looks simple until regulatory, legal and consumer-perception teams enter the conference room. Instead of building the entire positioning strategy around an absolute “natural” claim, I prefer transparency, tell consumers what the ingredients are and why they’re there. Monk fruit. Steviol glycosides. Thaumatin. Carriers. Good formulation doesn’t need a magic trick.

The Formulator’s Decision Tree

Choose V10 when: Fruit integration → rounded sweetness → monk-fruit-friendly flavor system → broader sensory profile.

Choose R10 when: Clean sweetness → neutral flavor → beverage application → precise temporal control.

Consider either when: Sugar reduction → sweetness gap → bitterness masking/modulation → high-intensity sweetener optimization

Choose neither by itself when: The problem is bulk, texture, water activity, freezing point, browning or solids.

That’s a different toolbox.

Thaumatiq™ V10 and Thaumatiq™ R10 aren’t competing versions of the same sweetener. They’re two different ways of engineering sweetness over time. V10 uses monk fruit + thaumatin to build a rounded, flavor-compatible sweetness system that can be particularly useful in fruit, dairy, chocolate, confectionery and complex food applications. R10 uses Reb M + thaumatin to create a cleaner, more neutral platform that I would look at early in beverages, protein products, hydration, energy and functional formulations.

But the bigger lesson has nothing to do with either product. Stop formulating sweetness as a single number. Formulate the curve. Ask when sweetness arrives. Ask where it peaks. Ask what happens in the middle. And, most importantly, ask whether it knows when to leave. Because the best sweetener system isn’t necessarily the sweetest one. It’s the one the consumer never has to think about.