Tate and Lyle
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Tate & Lyle PLC is a British-headquartered, global supplier of food and beverage ingredients to industrial markets. It was originally a sugar refining business, but from the 1970s it began to diversify, eventually divesting its sugar business in 2010. It specialises in turning raw materials such as corn and tapioca into ingredients that add taste, texture, and nutrients to food and beverages. It is listed on the
London Stock Exchange London Stock Exchange (LSE) is a stock exchange in the City of London, England, United Kingdom. , the total market value of all companies trading on LSE was £3.9 trillion. Its current premises are situated in Paternoster Square close to St P ...
and is a constituent of the FTSE 250 Index.


History


Sugar refining

The company was formed in 1921 from a merger of two rival sugar refiners: ''Henry Tate & Sons'' and ''Abram Lyle & Sons''.
Henry Tate Sir Henry Tate, 1st Baronet (11 March 18195 December 1899) was an English sugar merchant and philanthropist, noted for establishing the Tate Gallery in London. Life and career Born in White Coppice, a hamlet near Chorley, Lancashire, Tate was ...
established his business in 1859 in
Liverpool Liverpool is a city and metropolitan borough in Merseyside, England. With a population of in 2019, it is the 10th largest English district by population and its metropolitan area is the fifth largest in the United Kingdom, with a populat ...
, later expanding to
Silvertown Silvertown is a district in the London Borough of Newham, in east London, England. It lies on the north bank of the Thames and was historically part of the parishes of West Ham and East Ham, hundred of Becontree, and the historic county ...
in East London. He used his industrial fortune to found the Tate Institute in Silvertown in 1887 and the
Tate Gallery Tate is an institution that houses, in a network of four art galleries, the United Kingdom's national collection of British art, and international modern and contemporary art. It is not a government institution, but its main sponsor is the U ...
in Pimlico, Central London in 1897. He endowed the gallery with his own collection of
Pre-Raphaelite The Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood (later known as the Pre-Raphaelites) was a group of English painters, poets, and art critics, founded in 1848 by William Holman Hunt, John Everett Millais, Dante Gabriel Rossetti, William Michael Rossetti, James ...
paintings.
Abram Lyle Abram Lyle (14 December 1820 – 30 April 1891) is noted for founding the sugar refiners '' Abram Lyle & Sons'' which merged with the company of his rival Henry Tate to become Tate & Lyle in 1921. Early life He was born on 14 December 1820 i ...
, a cooper and shipowner, acquired an interest in a
sugar refinery A sugar refinery is a refinery which processes raw sugar from cane or beets into white refined sugar. Many cane sugar mills produce raw sugar, which is sugar that still contains molasses, giving it more colour (and impurities) than the w ...
in 1865 in Greenock and then at Plaistow Wharf, West Silvertown, London. The two companies had large factories nearby each other – Henry Tate in
Silvertown Silvertown is a district in the London Borough of Newham, in east London, England. It lies on the north bank of the Thames and was historically part of the parishes of West Ham and East Ham, hundred of Becontree, and the historic county ...
and Abram Lyle at Plaistow Wharf – so prompting the merger. Prior to the merger, which occurred after they had died, the two men were bitter business rivals, although they had never met in person. In 1949, the company introduced its "Mr Cube" brand, as part of a marketing campaign to help it fight a proposed nationalisation by the Labour government.


Diversification

From 1973, British membership of the European Economic Community threatened Tate & Lyle's core business, with quotas imposed from
Brussels Brussels (french: Bruxelles or ; nl, Brussel ), officially the Brussels-Capital Region (All text and all but one graphic show the English name as Brussels-Capital Region.) (french: link=no, Région de Bruxelles-Capitale; nl, link=no, Bruss ...
favouring domestic sugar beet producers over imported cane refiners such as Tate & Lyle. As a result, under the leadership of Saxon Tate (a direct descendant of Henry Tate), the company began to diversify into related fields of commodity trading, transport and engineering, and in 1976, it acquired competing cane sugar refiner Manbré & Garton. In 1976, the Company acquired a 33% stake (increased to 63% in 1988) in ''Amylum'', a European starch-based manufacturing business. The
Liverpool Liverpool is a city and metropolitan borough in Merseyside, England. With a population of in 2019, it is the 10th largest English district by population and its metropolitan area is the fifth largest in the United Kingdom, with a populat ...
sugar plant closed in 1981 and the Greenock plant closed in 1997. In 1988, Tate & Lyle acquired a 90% stake in A. E. Staley, a US corn processing business. In 1998 it brought ''Haarmann & Reimer'', a
citric acid Citric acid is an organic compound with the chemical formula HOC(CO2H)(CH2CO2H)2. It is a colorless weak organic acid. It occurs naturally in citrus fruits. In biochemistry, it is an intermediate in the citric acid cycle, which occurs in ...
producer. In 2000 it acquired the remaining minorities of Amylum and A. E. Staley. In 2004, it established a joint venture with DuPont to manufacture a renewable 1,3-Propanediol that can be used to make Sorona (a substitute for nylon). This was its first major foray into bio-materials. In 2005, DuPont Tate & Lyle BioProducts was created as a joint venture between DuPont and Tate & Lyle. In 2006, it acquired ''Hycail'', a small Dutch business, giving the company intellectual property and a pilot plant to manufacture Polylactic acid (PLA), another bio-plastic. In October 2007, five European starch and alcohol plants, previously part of the European starch division known as Amylum group, were sold to Syral, a subsidiary of French sugar company
Tereos Tereos is a cooperative conglomerate, primarily active in the processed agricultural raw materials, in particular sugar, alcohol and starch markets. The company is headquartered in Moussy-le-Vieux, France. History In 1932, the Origny-Sainte-B ...
. Syral closed its
Greenwich Peninsula The Greenwich Peninsula is an area of Greenwich in South East London, England. It is bounded on three sides by a loop of the Thames, between the Isle of Dogs to the west and Silvertown to the east. To the south is the rest of Greenwich, to the s ...
plant in London in September 2009, and it was subsequently demolished. In 2006, Lyle’s Golden Syrup tin was awarded a Guinness World Record as the world’s oldest branding. In February 2008, it was announced that Tate & Lyle granulated white cane sugar would be accredited as a
Fairtrade A fair trade certification is a product certification within the market-based movement fair trade. The most widely used fair trade certification is FLO International's, the International Fairtrade Certification Mark, used in Europe, Africa, As ...
product, with all the company's other retail products to follow in 2009. In April 2009, the
United States International Trade Commission The United States International Trade Commission (USITC or I.T.C.) is an agency of the United States federal government that advises the legislative and executive branches on matters of trade. It is an independent, bipartisan entity that analyze ...
affirmed a ruling that Chinese manufacturers can make
copycat Copycat refers to a person who copies some aspect of some thing or somebody else. Copycat may also refer to: Intellectual property rights * Copyright infringement, use of another’s ideas or words without permission * Patent infringement, a v ...
versions of its Splenda product. In 2021, Tate & Lyle ranked fourth in the Modified Starch category of FoodTalks' Global Food Thickener Companies list. In May 2022, it was announced that Tate & Lyle had acquired Nutriati, an ingredient technology company developing and producing chickpea protein and flour.


Disposal of sugar refining business

In July 2010 the company announced the sale of its sugar refining business, including rights to use the Tate & Lyle brand name and Lyle's Golden Syrup, to American Sugar Refining (owned by sugar barons the
Fanjul brothers The Fanjul brothers—Cuban born Alfonso "Alfy" Fanjul Jr., José "Pepe" Fanjul, Alexander Fanjul, and Andres Fanjul—are owners of Fanjul Corp., a vast sugar and real estate conglomerate in the United States and the Dominican Republic. It co ...
) for £211 million. The sale included the Plaistow Wharf and Silvertown plants.Tate & Lyle sells sugar arm to American Sugar Refining
BBC News, 1 July 2010
The new owners pledged that there would be no job losses as a result of the transaction.


Recent history

In 2012,
HarperCollins HarperCollins Publishers LLC is one of the Big Five English-language publishing companies, alongside Penguin Random House, Simon & Schuster, Hachette, and Macmillan. The company is headquartered in New York City and is a subsidiary of News ...
published '' The Sugar Girls'', a work of narrative non-fiction based on the true stories of women who worked at Tate & Lyle's two factories in the East End of London from the 1940s to the 1960s.
Nick Hampton Nick Hampton or Nicholas Hampton may refer to: * Nick Hampton (businessman) (born 1967), British businessman and CEO * Nick Hampton (American football) Nicholas Hampton (born April 5, 2000) is an American football linebacker for the Los Angeles ...
became CEO on 1 April 2018, replacing Javed Ahmed, who stepped down from this role and from the board, and retired from the company. Tate & Lyle has developed a method to commercially produce the natural sweetener
allulose D-Psicose (C6H12O6), also known as D-allulose, or simply allulose, is a low-calorie epimer of the monosaccharide sugar fructose, used by some major commercial food and beverage manufacturers as a low-calorie sweetener. First identified in wheat i ...
. It emerged in August 2019 that the company was seeking to take advantage of the 2019 permission from the
U.S. Food and Drug Administration The United States Food and Drug Administration (FDA or US FDA) is a federal agency of the Department of Health and Human Services. The FDA is responsible for protecting and promoting public health through the control and supervision of food ...
to not list the product in total sugar or as an added sugar in commercial food ingredients. In July 2021, Tate & Lyle announced it was spinning off Tate & Lyle Primary Products (formerly, A. E. Staley) into a new company to be known as Primary Products Ingredients Americas LLC (Primient). Tate & Lyle will maintain 50% ownership of Primient and the remaining 50% will be owned by
KPS Capital Partners KPS Capital Partners is an American investment company that manages KPS Special Situation Funds, a family of investment funds. KPS specifically invests out of two funds raised in October 2019: KPS Special Situations Fund V ($6.12 billion) and KPS ...
(including board and management control). The transaction was completed in April 2022. In June 2022, it was announced that Tate & Lyle had completed the acquisition of Quantum Hi-Tech (Guangdong) Biological Co., Ltd (Quantum), a prebiotic dietary fibre business located in China.


Operations

The company is organised as follows: *
Sweeteners A sugar substitute is a food additive that provides a sweetness like that of sugar while containing significantly less food energy than sugar-based sweeteners, making it a zero-calorie () or low-calorie sweetener. Artificial sweeteners may be d ...
, such as
Splenda Splenda is a global brand of sugar substitutes and reduced-calorie food products. While the company is known for its original formulation containing sucralose, it also manufactures items using natural sweeteners such as stevia, Siraitia grosveno ...
( sucralose), crystalline fructose, and
allulose D-Psicose (C6H12O6), also known as D-allulose, or simply allulose, is a low-calorie epimer of the monosaccharide sugar fructose, used by some major commercial food and beverage manufacturers as a low-calorie sweetener. First identified in wheat i ...
* Texturants, such as starch and
gums The gums or gingiva (plural: ''gingivae'') consist of the mucosal tissue that lies over the mandible and maxilla inside the mouth. Gum health and disease can have an effect on general health. Structure The gums are part of the soft tissue lin ...
* Health and wellness ingredients, such as dietary fibres * Stabilisers and functional systems


Controversies

In September 2022 starch supplied by Tate & Lyle PLC was identified as the possible source of the contaminant that led to the death of Celia Marsh in Bath in 2017, shortly after eating supposedly dairy-free yoghurt used in a
Pret a Manger Pret A Manger (''prêt à manger'' is French for ''ready to eat'') is an international sandwich shop franchise chain based in the United Kingdom, popularly referred to as Pret, founded in 1983. As of December 2022, Pret had 434 shops in the UK, ...
wrap. The yoghurt contained a stabiliser called HG1 designed by Australian company CoYo founder Henry Gosling with Tate & Lyle’s Australian subsidiary. From 2012, yoghurt using HG1 manufactured by Tate & Lyle’s plant in north Wales was supplied as "dairy-free" to Pret a Manger despite the HG1 bags from Tate & Lyle stating: “Manufactured in a factory that handles milk, eggs, cereals.”


See also

* Primient, American subsidiary *
Splenda Splenda is a global brand of sugar substitutes and reduced-calorie food products. While the company is known for its original formulation containing sucralose, it also manufactures items using natural sweeteners such as stevia, Siraitia grosveno ...
, sugar substitute *
Redpath Sugar Redpath Sugar Ltd. (french: Sucre Redpath Ltée) is a Canadian sugar refining company that was established in 1854 and the first refining cane sugar in Montreal, Quebec. Headquartered in Toronto, Ontario (with an additional packaging plant in Bel ...
, former subsidiary


References


Further reading

* – A source for information concerning T&L's union-busting activities in the early 1990s in Decatur, Illinois * ''Sugar and All That... A History of TATE & LYLE'' by Antony Hugill (Gentry Books, 1978)
Tate & Lyle PLC and Ferruzzi Finanziaria SpA and S & W Berisford PLC
1987
Competition Commission The Competition Commission was a non-departmental public body responsible for investigating mergers, markets and other enquiries related to regulated industries under competition law in the United Kingdom. It was a competition regulator under t ...
report
Tate & Lyle PLC and British Sugar plc
1991
Competition Commission The Competition Commission was a non-departmental public body responsible for investigating mergers, markets and other enquiries related to regulated industries under competition law in the United Kingdom. It was a competition regulator under t ...
report *


External links


Tate & Lyle corporate website
*
The history of sugar in Liverpool and the effects of the closure of the Tate & Lyle sugar refinery

The house of William Park Lyle, son of Abram Lyle, has had a multi million makeover

''The Sugar Girls'' official website
* {{DEFAULTSORT:Tate and Lyle British Royal Warrant holders Food manufacturers of the United Kingdom Companies listed on the London Stock Exchange Food processing in London British brands Sugar companies Starch companies Port of London Industry on the River Thames Manufacturing companies based in Liverpool 1921 establishments in England British companies established in 1921 Food and drink companies established in 1921 Sugar industry in the United Kingdom Companies based in the City of Westminster