Le Havre Presse - le 28 juin 2011

ECONOMY - A company from Le Havre bridgehead on the European market of this plant with sweetening powers

Patrick Merland took many risks in 2006, by dashing into the challenge of the marketing of Stevia through his company, La Maison du Stevia (Stevia House).

In this time, not many people knew benefactions natures of this plant native of South America. A real intense sweetener offered by Nature. On January 8th, 2010, a French order authorizes the use of the rebaudioside A in food usage. A good piece of news for Patrick Merland.

Ambassador

Born in Le Havre, 34-year-old, engineer in chemical and training in business school, he discovers during a report on France 2 this plant and its virtues. In the time he was on a diet and this natural sweetener seems to him ideal to pursue its efforts of thinning down. He decides to become the ambassador of the stevia in France. Stevia rebaudiana Bertoni is known since millenniums for its molecules, steviosides, three hundred times as sweetening than the sugar. The very demanding Japanese uses it for forty years.

Settled on Le Havre industrial area, he begins only now to be made a name. « It is not still easy, the pharmacies which I sell door-to-door are not still ready of dashing into the marketing of a little known product. » Some of his products are already for sale in the pharmacies of the Big West, Havre, Rennes, Caen, but also on its Internet site www.lamaisondustevia.com