News

Tate & Lyle doubles Shanghai lab size

26 Mar 2018

Tate & Lyle has doubled the size of its food application laboratory in Shanghai and added new customer-facing facilities to help manufacturers meet growing consumer demand for great tasting, healthier food and beverages.

Tate & Lyle has doubled the size of its food application laboratory in Shanghai and added new customer-facing facilities to help manufacturers meet growing consumer demand for great tasting, healthier food and beverages. Tate & Lyle has done this by moving to a new office and laboratory within Shanghai’s Caohejing Hi-Tech Development Zone.

The expanded laboratory and pilot scale capabilities enable customers to design, trial and benchmark different recipe formulations across a range of categories including dairy, beverage, bakery, and soups, sauces and dressings. Other services range from ultra-high temperature processing (UHT) used for sterilisation, to analysis in the new sensory lab, where consumers and professionally trained tasting panels can trial formulations before manufacturers launch them.

This expansion is part of a three-fold investment in Asia Pacific completed by Tate & Lyle in the past few months, including the expansion of the polydextrose soluble fibre facility in Nantong, China, and a major expansion of the Singapore food application laboratory. Together, the company says that these significant investments underline the strength of Tate & Lyle’s commitment to the Asia Pacific region.

“China is the largest and most dynamic food market in the world, serving a domestic population of 1.4 billion whose needs and preferences are constantly evolving,” said Harry Boot, General Manager Asia Pacific and Senior Vice President, Speciality Food Ingredients at Tate & Lyle. “By doubling the size of our food application laboratory in Shanghai, we will be able to partner more closely with food and beverage manufacturers and continue to grow our business in the Chinese market.”

“Taste, convenience and price have always been important to Chinese consumers, but increasingly they want healthier options which provide greater nutrition or support weight management. With our wide ingredient portfolio, technical expertise, and enhanced capabilities, Tate & Lyle can help food manufacturers launch more products with fewer calories, less sugar and fat, and added health benefits. Together, we are not just feeding people, we are feeding people well.”

“Adapting recipes, particularly for established household brands, can be challenging – there is no ‘one size fits all’ solution,” said Lily Jiang, Technical Service Manager at Tate & Lyle Shanghai. “Food and beverages bring great joy to many of us and we all expect our favourite products to taste and look a certain way. Every ingredient in a recipe performs an important function, and these must all be addressed when a recipe is changed or a product reformulated. Working in close collaboration with manufacturers at our new application centre in Shanghai, we are able quickly to develop ideas, ingredient solutions, and process innovations which deliver products that can win in the market.”