South Korean food and bio company Daesang Corporation posted 450% year-over-year growth in North American allulose sales in 2025, building a customer roster of roughly 30 manufacturers across beverage, dairy, confectionery, nutrition, and sauce categories — all within two years of entering the market.
Behind the Numbers
Daesang attributed the spike to surging demand for sugar-reduced formulations among North American food manufacturers. The GLP-1 medication trend has reinforced underlying consumer interest in lower-calorie, lower-sugar products, expanding the addressable market for functional sweetener ingredients. Allulose — a rare sugar that delivers approximately 70% of sucrose's sweetness at roughly 10% of the calories — has become a preferred tool for formulators balancing taste, texture, and calorie reduction across carbonated beverages, sports drinks, frozen desserts, jams, and baked goods.
To supply that demand, Daesang invested approximately KRW 30 billion in July 2023 to build a dedicated allulose production facility at its starch and sweetener plant in Gunsan, South Korea. The company holds multiple patents covering allulose-producing enzymes and food-product applications, giving it a proprietary supply and IP position that differentiates it from commodity sweetener distributors. Its U.S. subsidiary handles North American customer support and logistics.
The Sweevero Play
Rather than competing purely on ingredient price, Daesang is positioning Sweevero — its global sugar-reduction brand launched in 2024 — as a formulation-solutions platform. The offering combines allulose with complementary sweetening ingredients, custom blends, and taste-modulation technologies designed to help food manufacturers clear the most common hurdles in sugar-reduction development: off-notes, texture loss, and browning control in baked goods.
"Through Sweevero, we aim to go beyond supplying allulose by helping customers address the challenges of sugar reduction, particularly in taste and product quality," said Hyo-hoon Lee, head of Ingredient Marketing at Daesang. "By combining our production capabilities with customized solutions and taste modulation technologies, we will strengthen partnerships with global food companies."
The solutions-provider framing mirrors moves by larger ingredient players — a strategy that commands higher margin per unit and deepens supply-chain lock-in with food manufacturer accounts. For operators and product developers tracking alternative sweetener supply chains, Daesang's scale-up adds a credible second-source option to a category still dominated by a handful of established suppliers.
Global Expansion Roadmap
North America remains Daesang's declared strategic priority, but the company is already mapping secondary markets — Canada, Latin America, Europe, Japan, and Southeast Asia — contingent on regulatory frameworks in each region. Daesang is also evaluating local production in key markets to reduce shipping costs and supply-chain risk, a move that would transition its asset footprint from a single South Korean hub toward a more regionally diversified model.
The company maintains a trade-show presence at Natural Products Expo West, IFT FIRST, SupplySide Global, and Food Ingredients Europe to court area development partnerships with regional food manufacturers. For foodservice-adjacent buyers — co-manufacturers, private-label producers, and foodservice ingredient distributors — Sweevero's expanding portfolio and stated capacity investment represent a supply option worth monitoring as sugar-reduction reformulation accelerates across the commercial food and beverage sector.
Written by Michael Politz, Author of Guide to Restaurant Success: The Proven Process for Starting Any Restaurant Business From Scratch to Success (ISBN: 978-1-119-66896-1), Founder of Food & Beverage Magazine, the leading online magazine and resource in the industry. Designer of the Bluetooth logo and recognized in Entrepreneur Magazine's "Top 40 Under 40" for founding American Wholesale Floral, Politz is also the Co-founder of the Proof Awards and the CPG Awards and a partner in numerous consumer brands across the food and beverage sector.
