Thaumatin

Type of Protein	Sweet
Protein name	Thaumatin
Companies producing this protein	Conagen
Function (dairy alternative, colorant, texture, taste...)	Sweet taste (Joseph et al., 2019)
Target application (cheese, infant formula, meat...)	Used as a sweetener and flavor enhancer in drinks, dairy, chewing gum, toothpaste & medical products (Dalavi et al., 2024)
Purity requirement/purification values	Purity of thaumatin as a food addtive in Europe has to be ≥94%, and can be incresed to 97% (Younes et al., 2021). ≥94% pure in the application of Nomad
Techno-functional properties	Very thermostable (even above 100°C) and water soluble (Farag et al., 2022)
Nutritional properties	Low-calorie (Joseph et al., 2019)
Advantages	The protein is issued as safe, no allergenicity or toxicity reports (Joseph et al., 2019).
Challenges/risk factors	Delayed sweetness and licorice-like taste (Dalavi et al., 2024) Contains eight disulphide bonds that have to be folded correctly for the protein to be funcional. Certain host strains might struggle with this (Asr et al., 2022).

Komagatella phaffi (Pichia pastoris)