Our Business

Investing in Technology

Rapidly changing lifestyles are causing consumers to demand more from the products they buy – be they good food on-the-go or natural cosmetics. Our expertise in carbohydrate processing and blending, specialist R&D knowledge and insights into the market give us an edge in developing ingredients that help add taste, nutrition and increased functionality to our customers' products.

Research and development
We have over 280 people in our R&D team worldwide working to develop innovative ingredients from renewable resources. Our R&D network includes facilities around the world, and is headquartered in our largest US facility, Decatur, Illinois. Most recently, we have opened satellite laboratories in China, India and Australia to support our sales effort, while in Europe we have established a wellness and nutrition centre in Lille, France, which includes laboratories and pilot plant facilities for customers.

Our in-house research and development capability is organised into three primary groups: product development, technology, and customer solutions. Product development is divided into sweeteners, wellness, texturants and bio-materials. This group focuses on developing new and improving existing products. The technology group covers process engineering, analytical and carbohydrate chemistry, and biochemicals. Its role is to determine how to create, analyse and manufacture ingredients. The customer solutions group includes applications and technical service teams. The applications teams develop prototypes for customers using our ingredients, while the technical services teams work directly with our customers to incorporate our ingredients into their products.

Research partnerships
To give us fresh ideas and insights into the market, we develop partnerships with the external research community.  In 2006, we announced that we would be making a £4.5 million contribution over five years to King's College London to set up a new centre for research into the link between nutrition and health. The Tate & Lyle Health Research Centre focuses on gastrointestinal health, carbohydrate metabolism, and medical conditions such as obesity, diabetes and cardiovascular disorders. This partnership will allow us to share knowledge and ultimately bring new products and technologies to market. We have also established a Research Advisory Group comprising a panel of six international industry and academic experts, chaired by Dr Barry Zoumas, which reviews our research and development portfolio and provides insight into how leading-edge technologies could apply to future developments. In 2006, we launched our venture capital fund, Tate & Lyle Ventures, which invests in high-growth companies that specialise in renewable ingredients, food technologies, renewable resources (such as biomaterials and biofuels) and industrial processing technologies. In the past 12 months, it invested in Allylix (natural flavour and fragrance production), Aquapharm (marine-based nutrients), and BioFilm Ltd (edible film used in medicines and personal care products).

Investment in R&D
Most of our spend is on internal capabilities – fundamental research, product development and process improvement. The remainder is spent on developing relationships with the external research community, through our venture fund and alliances with key academic institutions. Our target is to spend 4% to 5% of value added turnover on R&D. In the year ended 31 March 2008, we spent US$64 million (£32 million) on R&D.

Blending and speciality ingredients businesses
In certain geographies where there is growth potential in the food ingredients market, we have taken the opportunity to invest in blending and speciality ingredients businesses. These businesses open up new avenues for selling ingredients through their relationships with small to medium-sized customers and their expertise in specific areas such as the dairy industry, gums and custom formulations. These businesses, based in South Africa, Germany, Italy and North America, source ingredients and develop solutions from them for customers. Their specialist knowledge supplements our existing in-house R&D capability.

These businesses often act as an R&D team for small to medium-sized customers and, by building close working relationships, often become trusted development partners.

Commercial partnerships
One way of growing our business is to form joint ventures or partnerships to develop and distribute new products, and to enhance the capabilities of our existing portfolio of ingredients. Using alliances and joint ventures can be an efficient way to lower our cost of investing in new areas and markets, and to help secure access to new and complementary technology and expertise. Examples include our partnership with McNeil Nutritionals (a Johnson & Johnson company) on SPLENDA® Sucralose, and with DuPont on Bio-PDO™.

Protecting our technical expertise
To support our businesses and protect our competitive advantage, we maintain a significant number of patents. Much of the product innovation and development work we do results in patentable or proprietary new technology. We monitor market developments closely to identify any potential violations of our patents and intellectual property and take appropriate legal action where considered necessary.