Tate and Lyle shifts innovation to shiny new Chicago site
The ingredients specialist announced in May, with its full year financial results, a refocus of its strategy to make its specialty ingredients business the focus of investment and long term growth.
As part of that decision it decided not to complete and commission a new plant that had been in the works in Fort Dodge, Iowa, serving carried out analyses of the end markets it would serve – ethanol, industrial starch and corn gluten feed – and deemed them too depressed and uncertain to press ahead.
The future, it seems, is in Chicago, and with specialty ingredients. The new innovation center, which will cost the company around $32m for relocation and $26m for equipping the leased 110,000 square foot premise, will become the global headquarters of innovation and commercial development.
It will also be the regional headquarters for specialty ingredients in the US, and will function as a base for all the US-based staff with global responsibilities, including the president of the global bulk ingredients unit.
Tate and Lyle is using cash generated by its bulk ingredients division to support the growth in its specialty ingredients division.
Located in the Hoffmann Estates area, the new center will have laboratories, a demonstration kitchen, and sensory testing, analytical and pilot plant facilities. It is expected to be operational by the end of 2011 and will host about 160 employees, many of whom will relocate from Decatur, Illinois.
“Meeting our customers’ product development and innovation needs is at the very heart of our business. The new Commercial and Food Innovation Centre will enable our scientists, marketing, sales and technical experts to collaborate more closely with our customers, and to respond rapidly to their needs for innovative food ingredients and solutions,” said chief executive Javed Ahmed.
Sales of value-added food ingredients in the US were £382 (c $434m) with a 25.7 percent margin, while sales of primary food ingredients were £982m (c $1556m) with a 8.7 percent margin.
The mothballing of the Fort Dodge factory caused it to be written down to £17 million, leading to an impairment of £217 million which was recognised as an exceptional charge in the 2010
financial year – with a further £25 million to be recognised in the 2011.
