Tate & Lyle
Encyclopedia
Tate & Lyle plc is a British-based multinational agribusiness
. It is listed on the London Stock Exchange
and is a constituent of the FTSE 100 Index
as of 20 June 2011. On 1 July 2010, its iconic sugar refining and golden syrup
business was sold to American Sugar Refining
.
Henry Tate
established his business in 1869 in Liverpool
, later expanding to Silvertown
, London: he used his industrial fortune to found the Tate Gallery
in London in 1897. Abram Lyle
, a cooper
and shipowner, acquired an interest in sugar refinery in 1865 in Greenock
, western Scotland and then in Plaistow
, London. The two companies had large factories nearby each other — Henry Tate in Silvertown
and Abram Lyle in Plaistow
— so prompting the merger. The Liverpool
plant closed in 1981. The Greenock
plant closed during the 1990s. The Plaistow and Silvertown plants were sold to American Sugar Refining in 2010.
In 1949 the Company introduced its "Mr Cube" brand, as part of a marketing campaign to help it fight a proposed nationalization
by the Labour
government. In 1976 the Company acquired a 33% stake (increased to 63% in 1988) in Amylum, a European starch-based manufacturing business.
In 1988 it acquired a 90% stake in A. E. Staley
, a US corn processing business and in 1998 it brought Haarmann & Reimer, a citric acid
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
) is 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. Tate &Lyle has discontinued their PLA activities and closed the Hycail plant in 2008.
In October 2007 five European starch and alcohol plants, previous part of the European starch division knowns as Amylum group, were sold to Syral, a subsidiary of French sugar company Tereos
. Syral has since closed the Greenwich plant, which is currently being demolished.
In February 2008, it was announced that Tate & Lyle granulated white cane sugar would be accredited as a Fairtrade product, with all the company's other retail products to follow in 2009.
In April 2009 the International Trade Commission affirmed a ruling that Chinese manufacturers can make copycat versions of its Splenda product.
Javed Ahmed became CEO on 1 October 2009, replacing Iain Ferguson. 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
for £211 million.
Agribusiness
In agriculture, agribusiness is a generic term for the various businesses involved in food production, including farming and contract farming, seed supply, agrichemicals, farm machinery, wholesale and distribution, processing, marketing, and retail sales....
. It is listed on the London Stock Exchange
London Stock Exchange
The London Stock Exchange is a stock exchange located in the City of London within the United Kingdom. , the Exchange had a market capitalisation of US$3.7495 trillion, making it the fourth-largest stock exchange in the world by this measurement...
and is a constituent of the FTSE 100 Index
FTSE 100 Index
The FTSE 100 Index, also called FTSE 100, FTSE, or, informally, the footsie , is a share index of the 100 most highly capitalised UK companies listed on the London Stock Exchange....
as of 20 June 2011. On 1 July 2010, its iconic sugar refining and golden syrup
Golden syrup
Golden syrup is a pale treacle. It is a thick, amber-colored form of inverted sugar syrup, made in the process of refining sugar cane juice into sugar, or by treatment of a sugar solution with acid. It is used in a variety of baking recipes and desserts. It has an appearance similar to honey, and...
business was sold to American Sugar Refining
American Sugar Refining
American Sugar Refining, Inc., headquartered in Yonkers, New York, is the world’s largest cane sugar refining company, with a production capacity of more than seven million tons of sugar...
.
History
The company was formed in 1921 from a merger of two rival sugar refiners, Henry Tate & Sons and Abram Lyle & Sons.Henry Tate
Henry Tate
Sir Henry Tate, 1st Baronet was an English sugar merchant and philanthropist, noted for establishing the Tate Gallery, London.-Life and career:...
established his business in 1869 in Liverpool
Liverpool
Liverpool is a city and metropolitan borough of Merseyside, England, along the eastern side of the Mersey Estuary. It was founded as a borough in 1207 and was granted city status in 1880...
, later expanding to Silvertown
Silvertown
Silvertown is an industrialised district on the north bank of the Thames in the London Borough of Newham. It was named after Samuel Winkworth Silver's former rubber factory which opened in 1852, and is now dominated by the Tate & Lyle sugar refinery and the John Knight ABP animal rendering...
, London: he used his industrial fortune to found the Tate Gallery
Tate Gallery
The Tate is an institution that houses the United Kingdom's national collection of British Art, and International Modern and Contemporary Art...
in London in 1897. Abram Lyle
Abram Lyle
Abram Lyle is noted for founding the sugar refiners Abram Lyle & Sons which merged with a rival to become Tate & Lyle in 1921....
, a cooper
Cooper (profession)
Traditionally, a cooper is someone who makes wooden staved vessels of a conical form, of greater length than breadth, bound together with hoops and possessing flat ends or heads...
and shipowner, acquired an interest in sugar refinery in 1865 in Greenock
Greenock
Greenock is a town and administrative centre in the Inverclyde council area in United Kingdom, and a former burgh within the historic county of Renfrewshire, located in the west central Lowlands of Scotland...
, western Scotland and then in Plaistow
Plaistow, Newham
Plaistow is a place in the London Borough of Newham in east London. It formed part of the County Borough of West Ham in Essex until 1965.Plaistow is a mainly residential area, including several council estates; the main road is the A112 - Plaistow Road, High Street, Broadway, Greengate Street and...
, London. The two companies had large factories nearby each other — Henry Tate in Silvertown
Silvertown
Silvertown is an industrialised district on the north bank of the Thames in the London Borough of Newham. It was named after Samuel Winkworth Silver's former rubber factory which opened in 1852, and is now dominated by the Tate & Lyle sugar refinery and the John Knight ABP animal rendering...
and Abram Lyle in Plaistow
Plaistow, Newham
Plaistow is a place in the London Borough of Newham in east London. It formed part of the County Borough of West Ham in Essex until 1965.Plaistow is a mainly residential area, including several council estates; the main road is the A112 - Plaistow Road, High Street, Broadway, Greengate Street and...
— so prompting the merger. The Liverpool
Liverpool
Liverpool is a city and metropolitan borough of Merseyside, England, along the eastern side of the Mersey Estuary. It was founded as a borough in 1207 and was granted city status in 1880...
plant closed in 1981. The Greenock
Greenock
Greenock is a town and administrative centre in the Inverclyde council area in United Kingdom, and a former burgh within the historic county of Renfrewshire, located in the west central Lowlands of Scotland...
plant closed during the 1990s. The Plaistow and Silvertown plants were sold to American Sugar Refining in 2010.
In 1949 the Company introduced its "Mr Cube" brand, as part of a marketing campaign to help it fight a proposed nationalization
Nationalization
Nationalisation, also spelled nationalization, is the process of taking an industry or assets into government ownership by a national government or state. Nationalization usually refers to private assets, but may also mean assets owned by lower levels of government, such as municipalities, being...
by the Labour
Labour Party (UK)
The Labour Party is a centre-left democratic socialist party in the United Kingdom. It surpassed the Liberal Party in general elections during the early 1920s, forming minority governments under Ramsay MacDonald in 1924 and 1929-1931. The party was in a wartime coalition from 1940 to 1945, after...
government. In 1976 the Company acquired a 33% stake (increased to 63% in 1988) in Amylum, a European starch-based manufacturing business.
In 1988 it acquired a 90% stake in A. E. Staley
A. E. Staley
A. E. Staley was a Decatur, Illinois based processor of corn founded in 1898. It changed its name to Staley Continental in 1985. It produced a range of starch products for the food, paper and other industries, high fructose corn syrup, crystalline fructose , ethanol and other agro-industrial...
, a US corn processing business and in 1998 it brought Haarmann & Reimer, a citric acid
Citric acid
Citric acid is a weak organic acid. It is a natural preservative/conservative and is also used to add an acidic, or sour, taste to foods and soft drinks...
producer; in 2000 it acquired the remaining minorities of Amylum and A. E. Staley.
In 2004 it established a joint venture with DuPont
DuPont
E. I. du Pont de Nemours and Company , commonly referred to as DuPont, is an American chemical company that was founded in July 1802 as a gunpowder mill by Eleuthère Irénée du Pont. DuPont was the world's third largest chemical company based on market capitalization and ninth based on revenue in 2009...
to manufacture a renewable 1,3-Propanediol
1,3-Propanediol
1,3-Propanediol is the organic compound with the formula CH22. This three-carbon diol is a colorless viscous liquid that is miscible with water.-Products:...
that can be used to make Sorona (a substitute for nylon
Nylon
Nylon is a generic designation for a family of synthetic polymers known generically as polyamides, first produced on February 28, 1935, by Wallace Carothers at DuPont's research facility at the DuPont Experimental Station...
) is its first major foray into bio-materials.
In 2005, DuPont Tate & Lyle BioProducts was created as a joint venture
Joint venture
A joint venture is a business agreement in which parties agree to develop, for a finite time, a new entity and new assets by contributing equity. They exercise control over the enterprise and consequently share revenues, expenses and assets...
between DuPont
DuPont
E. I. du Pont de Nemours and Company , commonly referred to as DuPont, is an American chemical company that was founded in July 1802 as a gunpowder mill by Eleuthère Irénée du Pont. DuPont was the world's third largest chemical company based on market capitalization and ninth based on revenue in 2009...
and Tate & Lyle.
In 2006 it acquired Hycail, a small Dutch
Netherlands
The Netherlands is a constituent country of the Kingdom of the Netherlands, located mainly in North-West Europe and with several islands in the Caribbean. Mainland Netherlands borders the North Sea to the north and west, Belgium to the south, and Germany to the east, and shares maritime borders...
business, giving the Company intellectual property and a pilot plant to manufacture Polylactic acid
Polylactic acid
Poly or polylactide is a thermoplastic aliphatic polyester derived from renewable resources, such as corn starch , tapioca products or sugarcanes...
(PLA), another bio-plastic. Tate &Lyle has discontinued their PLA activities and closed the Hycail plant in 2008.
In October 2007 five European starch and alcohol plants, previous part of the European starch division knowns as Amylum group, were sold to Syral, a subsidiary of French sugar company Tereos
Tereos
Tereos is a French maker of sugar, starch and bioethanol.Tereos produces sugar based on sugar based sugar beet and sugar cane. It also engages in the production of fondant sugar....
. Syral has since closed the Greenwich plant, which is currently being demolished.
In February 2008, it was announced that Tate & Lyle granulated white cane sugar would be accredited as a Fairtrade product, with all the company's other retail products to follow in 2009.
In April 2009 the International Trade Commission affirmed a ruling that Chinese manufacturers can make copycat versions of its Splenda product.
Javed Ahmed became CEO on 1 October 2009, replacing Iain Ferguson. 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
Golden syrup
Golden syrup is a pale treacle. It is a thick, amber-colored form of inverted sugar syrup, made in the process of refining sugar cane juice into sugar, or by treatment of a sugar solution with acid. It is used in a variety of baking recipes and desserts. It has an appearance similar to honey, and...
, to American Sugar Refining
American Sugar Refining
American Sugar Refining, Inc., headquartered in Yonkers, New York, is the world’s largest cane sugar refining company, with a production capacity of more than seven million tons of sugar...
for £211 million.
Operations
The Company is organised as follows:- Speciality Food Ingredients
- sweeteners, such as SplendaSplendaSplenda is the commercial name and registered trade mark of a sucralose-based artificial sweetener derived from sugar, owned by the British company Tate & Lyle. Sucralose was discovered by Tate & Lyle and researchers at Queen Elizabeth College, University of London, in 1976...
sucraloseSucraloseSucralose is an artificial sweetener. The majority of ingested sucralose is not broken down by the body and therefore it is non-caloric. In the European Union, it is also known under the E number E955. Sucralose is approximately 600 times as sweet as sucrose , twice as sweet as saccharin, and 3.3...
and crystalline fructoseFructoseFructose, or fruit sugar, is a simple monosaccharide found in many plants. It is one of the three dietary monosaccharides, along with glucose and galactose, that are absorbed directly into the bloodstream during digestion. Fructose was discovered by French chemist Augustin-Pierre Dubrunfaut in 1847... - texturants, such as starchStarchStarch or amylum is a carbohydrate consisting of a large number of glucose units joined together by glycosidic bonds. This polysaccharide is produced by all green plants as an energy store...
and gumsGum arabic220px|thumb|right|Acacia gumGum arabic, also known as acacia gum, chaar gund, char goond, or meska, is a natural gum made of hardened sap taken from two species of the acacia tree; Acacia senegal and Acacia seyal... - wellness ingredients, such as dietary fiberDietary fiberDietary fiber, dietary fibre, or sometimes roughage is the indigestible portion of plant foods having two main components:* soluble fiber that is readily fermented in the colon into gases and physiologically active byproducts, and* insoluble fiber that is metabolically inert, absorbing water as it...
s
- sweeteners, such as Splenda
- Bulk Ingredients - such as high fructose corn syrupCorn syrupCorn syrup is a food syrup, which is made from the starch of maize and contains varying amounts of maltose and higher oligosaccharides, depending on the grade. Corn syrup is used in foods to soften texture, add volume, prevent crystallization of sugar, and enhance flavor...
, acidulantAcidity regulatorAcidity regulators, or pH control agents, are food additives added to change or maintain pH . They can be organic or mineral acids, bases, neutralizing agents, or buffering agents....
s etc
See also
- A. E. StaleyA. E. StaleyA. E. Staley was a Decatur, Illinois based processor of corn founded in 1898. It changed its name to Staley Continental in 1985. It produced a range of starch products for the food, paper and other industries, high fructose corn syrup, crystalline fructose , ethanol and other agro-industrial...
- US owned subsidiary. - SplendaSplendaSplenda is the commercial name and registered trade mark of a sucralose-based artificial sweetener derived from sugar, owned by the British company Tate & Lyle. Sucralose was discovered by Tate & Lyle and researchers at Queen Elizabeth College, University of London, in 1976...
- sucralose, a key product for the Group
Further reading
- Sugar and All That... A History of TATE & LYLE by Antony Hugill (Gentry Books, 1978) ISBN 0856140481
- Tate & Lyle PLC and Ferruzzi Finanziaria SpA and S & W Berisford PLC, 1987 Competition CommissionCompetition CommissionThe Competition Commission is a non-departmental public body responsible for investigating mergers, markets and other enquiries related to regulated industries under competition law in the United Kingdom...
report - Tate & Lyle PLC and British Sugar plc, 1991 Competition CommissionCompetition CommissionThe Competition Commission is a non-departmental public body responsible for investigating mergers, markets and other enquiries related to regulated industries under competition law in the United Kingdom...
report