PureCircle Reports Strong Growth as Natural High Intensity Sweetener Market Opens for Business

PureCircle said the clear establishment of a Natural High Intensity Sweetener ('NHIS') market has now happened, the first step in the development of the long term US $10 billion complementary-with-sugar market.

24 Sep 2009 --- PureCircle, the world's leading producer of Natural High Intensity Sweeteners, including Reb A, has announced results for financial year ended 30 June 2009 ('FY 2009'). FY 2009, as expected, was a transformational year for both the Natural High Intensity Sweetener (NHIS) market and for the Company. Sales of 266 tonnes of Reb A (FY 2008: 115 tonnes) were reported, an increase of 131%. Sales of $60 million were reported (FY 2008: $34 million), an increase of 76%. Net profit of $11 million was reported (FY2008: $2.1 million), an increase of 428%

PureCircle said the clear establishment of a Natural High Intensity Sweetener ('NHIS') market has now happened, the first step in the development of the long term US $10 billion complementary-with-sugar market. Other developments last year were regulatory clearances during the year in USA, Switzerland, Russia and Australia. In essence only the EU and Canada of major markets still to clear. France's clearance in September 2009 supports the company’s opinion that remaining clearances will follow within 2 years. All product launches are outperforming their categories: albeit so far just niche products and small volumes. Stevia extract capacity quadrupled; believed to be over 50% of the total industry capacity, while a major $35m factory expansion was commissioned within 21 months of project starting

Paul Selway - Swift, Chairman of PureCircle, commented: “This was a transformational year for the Natural High Intensity Sweetener (NHIS) market and for PureCircle. We have established PureCircle as the world's leading supplier of NHIS ingredients, including Reb A. We have world class supply chain infrastructure in place, a global sales organisation established and an excellent international management team leading the business.”

“Importantly over the past year nearly all major global Food & Beverage companies have engaged with us on how best to exploit the potential of NHIS ingredients for their businesses. Their strong enthusiasm to develop NHIS is underpinned by a growing understanding of just how environmentally and socially sustainable a crop stevia is and the opportunities it offers to both consumers and rural supplier communities.”

“In the medium term we are confident that this will be a major new global industry. PureCircle is the undisputed market leader and we are ideally placed for significant long term growth.”

”In the short term volume take-up depends on the speed of our customers getting new products to market. These launches will inevitably be tougher to programme against the current economic backdrop. Sales growth may therefore be volatile. We are hard at work supporting our customers on the development of larger volume products that will trigger use of Reb A in mass market products. We expect the world's F&B companies to increase the rate of launches using Reb A during calendar 2010 and 2011. Growing concerns about the levels of consumer obesity, about the safety of artificial sweeteners and the unpredictability of sugar prices can only support and encourage the development of the NHIS market in which PureCircle intends to remain the leader,” he concluded.