Tate & Lyle to Establish New Commercial and Food Innovation Center in Chicago

DECATUR, Ill., Oct. 19 /PRNewswire/ -- Tate & Lyle PLC ("Tate & Lyle") today announced plans to establish a new Commercial and Food Innovation Center in the Chicago, Illinois, suburb of Hoffman Estates.

"This announcement represents an important step in positioning Tate & Lyle to deliver on its clear focus of becoming the leading global provider of specialty food ingredients and solutions," said Javed Ahmed, chief executive officer, Tate & Lyle.

The 110,000 square-foot, three-story building, to be leased by Tate & Lyle, will feature laboratories, a demonstration kitchen, and sensory testing, analytical and pilot plant facilities.  The new center will be specifically designed to meet customers' functional, formulation and nutritional needs and to accelerate the process of bringing new products to market.

The new center will be the global headquarters of Tate & Lyle's Innovation and Commercial Development group and the regional headquarters for the Speciality Food Ingredients business in North America.  The center will also act as the base for those US employees with global responsibilities and, accordingly, the president of the Bulk Ingredients global business unit, and his support staff, will be located there.  These groups are all currently located in Decatur, Illinois, and employees from these groups eventually will be relocating to Chicago.  In total, approximately 160 positions will be located in the new center.

The new center, to be built out at a cost of $26 million, is expected to be operational by the end of 2011.

Karl Kramer, president, Innovation and Commercial Development for Tate & Lyle, said:  "The needs of the market and our customers are constantly changing.  Our new state-of-the-art food innovation center in Chicago will enable us to collaborate more closely with our customers to develop and commercialize new ingredients and solutions rapidly and efficiently."

The headquarters and leadership team of Tate & Lyle's Americas Bulk Ingredients business will continue to be based in Decatur, Illinois.

Matt Wineinger, president, Bulk Ingredients for Tate & Lyle said: "Tate & Lyle is proud of its long association with the city of Decatur.  We will continue to have our plant and several hundred employees in the city, and Decatur will remain the headquarters of our Bulk Ingredients business in the Americas.  Tate & Lyle will continue to play an important role in the local community."

About Tate & Lyle:

Tate & Lyle is a global provider of ingredients and solutions to the food, beverage and other industries, operating from more than 45 production facilities around the world. Through our large-scale, efficient manufacturing plants, we turn raw materials into distinctive, high quality ingredients for our customers. Our ingredients and solutions add taste, texture, nutrition and increased functionality to products that millions of people around the world use or consume every day.

Tate & Lyle's range of leading branded food ingredients includes SPLENDA® Sucralose, PROMITOR™ Dietary Fiber and STA-LITE® Polydextrose. Tate & Lyle also produces branded industrial ingredients including Bio-PDO™, Ethylex® and Sta-Lok® paper starches; and staple ingredients such as high fructose corn syrup, ethanol, citric acid and basic starches. In addition to providing a wide range of ingredients our Innovation and Commercial Development Group supports customers by providing product development, technical advice and proprietary consumer insight studies.

Tate & Lyle is listed on the London Stock Exchange under the symbol TATE.L. American Depositary Receipts trade under TATYY. In the year to 31 March 2010, Tate & Lyle employed 5,666 people in its subsidiaries and joint ventures, and sales totalled 3.6 billion pounds Sterling. http://www.tateandlyle.com.

SPLENDA® is a trademark of McNeil Nutritionals, LLC

SOURCE Tate & Lyle PLC