ABSTRACT
Introduction e field of high-potency sweeteners has long been an active area of research. Stimulated by the accidental discovery of the potent sweet taste of aspartame in 1965 (Ripper et al. 1986; Mazur et al. 1969), dipeptides became an area of increasing interest for chemists and food technologists alike. Starting in the early 1970s, an intensive, systematic program to develop high-potency sweeteners was carried out at Pfizer Central Research. is program, which involved the synthesis of a large number of dipeptides of diverse structural types, culminated in the preparation of alitame. Alitame and structurally related peptide sweeteners are the subject of a US patent (Brennan and Hendrick 1983).
