24 Jul 2026
The Sugar Breakthrough That Finally Cleared Its Biggest Hurdle
When Ed Rogers last joined Money in the Bank with Franck, Bonumose was still fighting a battle that had little to do with taste, demand or science.
The problem was the label.
Tagatose, the rare sugar Bonumose produces, had been classified by the FDA as an added sugar because it is technically a monosaccharide. That classification remained in place even though tagatose behaves very differently from conventional sugar and has properties more commonly associated with fiber.
Bonumose challenged the decision in federal court and won. But even after the ruling, the company still had to wait for the FDA to act.
Now, that barrier has finally been removed.
“The FDA still had not followed what the court told them to do,” Rogers said, reflecting on the period after the ruling. “Shortly after we spoke in October 2025, we did get a decision from the FDA that tagatose was going to be exempted and now is exempted from being classified as added sugars on nutrition facts panels.”
That decision changed the company’s problem almost overnight.
Before, Bonumose had a demand problem. Food companies could see the potential of tagatose, but the added-sugar designation created confusion for consumers and made widespread adoption difficult.
Now, according to Rogers, the company has the opposite problem.
“We would say, based upon what we’re hearing from our commercial partners, that the demand is around 20 times what our plant capacity is,” he said.
In other words, the science is no longer the primary obstacle. Neither is labeling.
The bottleneck is production.
From regulatory fight to commercial scale
Bonumose currently produces tagatose at its facility in Virginia using starch from American-grown crops. The company’s process can use corn, wheat, potatoes and other starch sources, which are then converted into tagatose using proprietary enzymes.
Rogers emphasized that there is nothing inherent in the process that prevents large-scale production.
The challenge is bringing additional manufacturing partners online.
Bonumose is now in active discussions with starch producers and other companies that already understand the unit operations required to convert starch into sweeteners. At very large scale, Rogers believes some infrastructure currently used to produce high-fructose corn syrup could eventually be adapted for tagatose production.
That makes the opportunity larger than a single food ingredient.
It is also a domestic manufacturing story.
Bonumose’s tagatose is made from American-grown crops, and Rogers argues that large-scale rare-sugar production could support farmers, expand demand for non-GMO starch and reduce dependence on foreign supply chains.
He even compared the strategic importance of rare sugars to rare earth minerals.
“I can make a straight-faced argument that tagatose production, rare sugar production, is as important as rare earth mineral production,” Rogers said. “It is important to American health.”
Why tagatose is different
Tagatose is not an artificial sweetener and Bonumose did not invent it.
As Rogers put it, “God invented tagatose.”
The rare sugar occurs naturally in small quantities and was first commercialized decades ago. Bonumose’s innovation was developing a more scalable way to manufacture it.
Its appeal comes from a combination of taste, function and potential health benefits.
Tagatose has a taste and texture similar to conventional sugar, but Rogers says it has a much lower impact on blood sugar. It also behaves like a prebiotic, passing largely into the large intestine, where it can be fermented by beneficial gut bacteria.
According to Rogers, research has associated tagatose with the production of short-chain fatty acids such as butyrate, while also showing potential benefits related to blood sugar response, insulin response and oral health.
It is also recognized as non-cariogenic, meaning it does not contribute to tooth decay in the way conventional sugar does.
For food manufacturers, however, health benefits are only part of the equation.
Ingredients still have to taste good.
That is where tagatose may have an advantage over many existing sugar alternatives. Rogers argued that it compares favorably with sugar alcohols such as erythritol, xylitol and maltitol, particularly in taste, functionality and overall consumer experience.
The company does not expect tagatose to replace all conventional sugar, nor does it believe every product should rely on tagatose alone.
Instead, Rogers sees the future in blends.
Tagatose can be combined with conventional sugar to reduce glycemic impact, or paired with highly concentrated sweet proteins to create products with dramatically lower sugar content.
In categories such as soft drinks, ice cream and packaged foods, those blends could potentially deliver a more sugar-like experience without requiring manufacturers to compromise as heavily on taste or texture.
The next 24 months
For years, Bonumose’s biggest goal was clear: resolve the FDA labeling issue.
Now the company’s priorities have shifted.
Over the next 12 to 24 months, Rogers wants to bring significantly more production capacity online—enough that major food companies no longer have to worry about supply running out.
That means expanding manufacturing partnerships while continuing to improve the enzymes at the center of Bonumose’s process.
The faster, stronger and less expensive those enzymes become, the more affordable tagatose can become for the mass market.
Rogers is not focused on naming a specific chocolate bar, beverage or snack that will adopt tagatose first.
He believes those applications will follow once the supply is ready.
“I’m not gonna say, ‘Hey, I want to see tagatose in the XYZ chocolate bar or this cookie or this ice cream or this soft drink,’ because that will come,” he said. “It is the large-scale production.”
That may be the most important shift in the Bonumose story.
The company is no longer simply trying to prove that tagatose deserves a place in the food system.
It is trying to build enough of it to meet the demand already forming.
Watch the full conversation with Ed Rogers on Money in the Bank with Franck.
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