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| Tate & Lyle issues another profit warning | Tate & Lyle issues another profit warning |
| (about 5 hours later) | |
| British food ingredient company Tate & Lyle has issued its third profit warning in a year, hit by weak trading at its sweetener business. | British food ingredient company Tate & Lyle has issued its third profit warning in a year, hit by weak trading at its sweetener business. |
| The company, which makes Splenda, warned that annual profits would be "modestly below" the range of £230- £245m that it forecast in September. | |
| The September figure was itself a downgrade from earlier forecasts. | |
| Tate blames competition from cheaper Chinese sweeteners and falling sugar prices in Europe. | |
| Shares in the company were down almost 13% in early trading. | Shares in the company were down almost 13% in early trading. |
| The company has been struggling over the last year. | |
| A harsh winter the United States in 2014 reduced Tata's supply of corn which is the firm's raw material for the production of sweeteners. | |
| "The very cold and long winter in the US meant Tate & Lyle came into 2014 with lower [corn] stocks than usual, as the company produces a lot of corn in the US," said Alec Mattinson, finance editor at The Grocer magazine. | |
| "This was exacerbated by a shutdown of its Singapore sucralose factory - meaning it didn't have enough product to fulfil orders," he added. | |
| As an emergency measure Tata had to spend £31m flying orders direct to its customers. |