The company said that the third quarter was broadly in line with its expectations before the impact of exchange rate movements. As expected, adjusted profit before tax was lower than the comparative period as a result of the step change in fixed costs associated with its business transformation initiatives.
Within Speciality Food Ingredients, Tate & Lyle said that it achieved good sales growth with volume growth ahead of the wider speciality food ingredients market. In starch-based speciality ingredients, it achieved good sales growth with volume growth in all regions. In high intensity sweeteners, while the company saw a return towards more normal sucralose volume growth and expect this to continue in the final quarter, the level of growth was not as strong as anticipated in November and it now expects sucralose volumes for the full year to be slightly lower than last year.
In Food Systems, sales were broadly in line with the comparative period on lower volumes. Operating profit for the Speciality Food Ingredients division for the full year is now expected to be broadly in line with the prior year.
Within Bulk Ingredients, overall demand for North American liquid sweeteners was solid during the third quarter, according to Tate & Lyle, while in Europe, margins for liquid sweeteners were broadly in line with the prior year period. The markets for industrial starches in both Europe and the US were relatively stable while the environment for US ethanol continued to be challenging.
Tate & Lyle said that it has made a solid start to the final quarter and that, despite facing a number of headwinds and before the impact of exchange rate movements, it expects to make modest progress this financial year.
The company’s new, dedicated Open Innovation web portal is designed to encourage universities, start-ups and companies specialising in food science to submit proposals which are aligned with Tate & Lyle’s innovation priorities of sweeteners, texturants and health and wellness.
“We value our partnerships enormously but also understand that approaching large corporations with a new innovation can be daunting,” said John Stewart, Open Innovation Manager at Tate & Lyle. “This is why Tate & Lyle has a small, dedicated team to help with the process. Our new website enables potential partners to submit ideas quickly and easily and for innovators to work with us to create long-term ‘win-win’ relationships.”
“With our Open Innovation team we can put all the expertise and commercial resources of Tate & Lyle behind the brilliant ideas of academics, inventors or business partners,” said Karl Kramer, President of Innovation and Commercial Development at Tate & Lyle. “With this new web portal we are making it even easier for potential partners to connect with our Open Innovation team, and we encourage them to approach us with their ideas.”
