Tate & Lyle Plans New Commercial and Food Innovation Center

DECATUR, ILTate & Lyle PLC announced plans to launch a new Commercial and Food Innovation Center in Hoffman Estates, IL, a suburb of Chicago. This new center will serve as the home of the global headquarters of Tate & Lyle's Innovation and Commercial Development group and the regional headquarters for the Specialty Food Ingredients business in North America. 

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, says Javed Ahmed, chief executive officer, Tate & Lyle.

The new center, costing Tate & Lyle approximately $26 million, should be in operation by the end of 2011. The company will lease the 110,000 square-foot, three-story building and outfit it with laboratories and a demonstration kitchen, as well as sensory-testing, analytical and pilot-plant facilities. The center will be designed to meet customers functional, formulation and nutritional needs and to speed introduction of new products to market. The State of Illinois will contribute more than $15 million for an investment package from the Department of Commerce and Economic Opportunity to keep the companys new facility in the state, Associated Press reports.

The needs of the market and our customers are constantly changing, says Karl Kramer, president, Innovation and Commercial Development, Tate & Lyle. 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.

Approximately 160 employees will staff the new center. In addition to headquartering Tate & Lyle's Innovation and Commercial Development group and North American Specialty Food Ingredients business, the location will also act as the base for U.S. employees with global responsibilities, including the president of the Bulk Ingredients global business unit, and his support staff. These functions are all currently located in Decatur, IL, and employees from these groups will relocate to the new Hoffman Estates facility.  The headquarters and leadership team of Tate & Lyle's Americas Bulk Ingredients business will remain in Decatur.

Matt Wineinger, president, Bulk Ingredients for Tate & Lyle says: 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.