Guilin Gfs Monk Fruit Corp.

Guilin GFS Monk Fruit Corp., which trades internationally as Monk Fruit Corp., was founded in 2004 by Fusheng Lan as a Sino-foreign equity joint venture with BioVittoria Ltd of New Zealand. It grows and processes monk fruit, the subtropical melon native to southern China, and sells monk fruit juice concentrate, monk fruit decoction and monk fruit extract as sweetening ingredients.

The company built its position on agronomy. Work by its founder and his team on seedling propagation and orchard management led to the first commercial supply of tissue-cultured monk fruit seedlings and to minimum price contracts with growers that shared risk and stabilised supply. It has bred and registered four monk fruit varieties and continues genetic research into higher yielding types. Contract growers are spread across 22 counties of Guangxi, and fruit is delivered from the orchards to a processing plant nearby, where it is crushed, infused in hot water, filtered and, for the extract, separated from the fruit sugars and spray dried.

Regulatory work opened the United States market. The company obtained self-affirmed GRAS status for its extract and the FDA review was completed in January 2010. In October 2010 it entered an exclusive partnership with Tate and Lyle that remains in place. Demand growth between 2010 and 2014 led it to expand raw material and processing capacity, acquire the seedling producer Guilin Bio-DaDi Co. Ltd. and the assets of BioVittoria, and establish subsidiaries in the United States and New Zealand.

It was the first company to hold BRC and FSSC 22000 certification for monk fruit ingredients, and also holds HACCP, OU kosher and halal certification. Composition of matter patents have been granted in the United Kingdom, the European Union, China, Japan, Hong Kong, New Zealand and Australia.