Prebiotic potential of new sweeteners based on the simultaneous biosynthesis of galactooligosaccharides and enzymatically modified steviol glycosides

[Display omitted] •Enzymatic synthesised steviol glycosides with GOS could serve as a sugar alternative.•One-pot steviol glycosides with GOS brought an improvement in the sweet perception.•Faecal batch culture fermentations revealed prebiotic effects tested in vitro. Prebiotics are known for their health-promoting functions associated with the modulation of the colonic microbiota and the products of fermentation. Recently, single-pot syntheses of galactooligosaccharides in combination with steviol glycosides (mSG-GOS) have been developed. This work was conducted to evaluate their prebiotic effect by using faecal inoculum from healthy human donors during in vitro batch fermentations. Additionally, their relative sweetness was evaluated to determine their suitability as food ingredients. The results showed a significant growth (p