LONDON — Tate & Lyle, P.L.C. has begun making shipments of its Dolcia Prima allulose, a sweetener introduced earlier this year. The sweetener, already approved for use as an ingredient in the United States and Chile, could receive approval in other countries in a year or two.
“A couple of other Latin American countries — you can never be sure with these things because you are going through some fairly heavy process here and filings — but I would expect in the next 12 to 18 months, we would be looking at approvals there,” said Javed Ahmed, chief executive of London-based Tate & Lyle, in a July 29 call to discuss the company’s first-quarter trading statement. “Europe, I would say, is closer to two years away here, and then, obviously, we’re working through some approvals in the Asia Pacific region as well. Something in the Asia Pacific region is, clearly, you want to make sure that some of the pace-setters there like Australia and New Zealand would be an area of focus for us because they influence a lot of the other markets in the region as well, but there I would say is again a good couple of years away on that.”
Dolcia Prima allulose is a rare sugar that has 90% fewer calories than regular sugar. Potential applications include baked foods, beverages, dairy products, confectionery items, salad dressings, jams and jellies.
“A number of customers are approaching what I would call advanced stages of formulation and internal approvals in their own brands,” Mr. Ahmed said. “We're already shipping to one customer, and another is in the final stages, and we expect to start shipping to them probably sometime in Q4. So the shipments to date are very much in line with our expectations.”
Splenda sucralose, a high-intensity sweetener, had a solid performance in the first quarter ended June 30, Tate & Lyle said in its July 29 trading statement.
“At this stage, we’re very much expecting sucralose to be at least break-even for the year,” Mr. Ahmed said. “We’re not seeing anything different than we had expected. I think volumes are very much in line with expectations.”
The company will pursue Splenda sucralose volume only in instances where Tate & Lyle sees value. The company is in the process of closing its sucralose facility in Singapore and consolidating production in a sucralose facility in McIntosh, Ala.
