In the early 70’s a British company Tate and Lyle joined the search for alternatives to calorie rich carbohydrate sweeteners like sucrose. When there were fears over safety of certain artificial sweeteners Tate and Lyle ‘Specialty Sweeteners’ division began investigating ‘natural sweet substances’. In 1972 the Tate and Lyle ‘Sweetener’ project was initiated in Ghana in West Africa and at the same time Van de Walls et al had isolated the ‘sweet fraction’ a protein. (Its structure was only finally determined in 1979.)
As far as it is know it is the sweetest natural substance.
Tate and Lyle selected two of the most promising plants for investigation. Finally the sweet aril gel of T.d. was selected because of its colour, solubility, stability, ease of extraction, yield, lack of bitter substances and effectiveness as a sweetener.