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Joywell Foods
Protein-based sweeteners with zero calories
Founded
2014
Employees*
11-50
Funding to Date*
$6.9M
* Data source: Crunchbase
Jason Ryder, PhD, CTO
The American consumer doesn’t always like the tartness or sourness of a Greek yogurt, for example, so many brands add a lot of sugar. If you formulate with miraculin, you don’t have to do that. It’s the same with granola, and with lemonade, or other sugary acidic drinks with ascorbic acid or citric acid added
The West African natives chewed the 'miraculous berry prior to food consumption to make acidic foods with an overly sour taste, such as kankies (sour cornbread), or intensely sour drinks, such as palm wine and pitt, more palatable.

Ten years ago, a founder at Joywell was researching ways to help his grandmother, a cancer patient, enjoy foods after chemotherapy wrecked her taste buds. He came across a molecule called miraculin, a protein that temporarily tricks your taste buds into thinking sour is actually sweet.

Over the last several years, people have been throwing “flavor tripping parties” that revolve around popping a tablet of miraculin and subsequently trying sour foods, only to then perceive them as sweet. Joywell took this idea turn make the future of artificial sweeteners, made not from carbs, but from proteins. Today, Joywell mass produces this protein using a bit of genetic engineering and microbial fermentation, they’ll be partnering with CPG companies to push out a wide variety of products to replace not only natural but artificial sugars. Watch out, stevia!