The specialty food ingredients and solutions group, Tate & Lyle has reported a strong performance for the fourth quarter which is in line with its expectations driven by the robust growth in speciality food ingredients sales volumes.

This will result the group to report a good performance for the full-year. Within bulk ingredients, sweetener volumes have remained strong with isoglucose margins improving in Europe during the second half on the back of higher sugar prices.

During the year Tate & Lyle has also benefited from firmer industrial starch margins in Europe despite market conditions having started to soften recently against the backdrop of a more challenging macro-economic environment.

After an exceptionally strong first half, income from co-products has reverted to more normal levels during the second half.

The group is pleased to announce the production at its Splenda Sucralose facility in McIntosh, Alabama has recently restarted ahead of schedule and the first customer orders received to be fulfilled from this facility. It has decided to keep its US corn silos full in response to the anticipated tight supply situation running up to the next harvest. As a result, net debt at 31 March 2012 will be little higher than at the end of last year.

London