Tate & Lyle Rediscover Altern at Wal-Mart

Tate & Lyle reported that it has become aware of the re-appearance of a low-calorie tabletop sweetener product branded as Altern in a small number of Wal*Mart stores in the US.

14/02/06 Sucralose producer Tate & Lyle is in the process of determining whether the re-appearance of Altern, a table-top sweetener described as containing sucralose meets US FDA specifications and/or infringes on the company’s intellectual property. Last September Tate & Lyle forced Wal-Mart to stop selling Altern after discovering it contained sucralose supplied by one of its own customers.

The company now reported that it has become aware of the re-appearance of a low-calorie tabletop sweetener product branded as Altern in a small number of Wal*Mart stores in the US. Tate & Lyle has analysed samples of this product and believes it to contain an active ingredient of Chinese origin, but would not specify if they knew exactly who the company was.

Company spokesperson Ferne Hudson told FoodIngredientsFirst that the investigation will have a timeframe of months rather than weeks, but she stressed that Tate & Lyle does not expect the launch to have any material effect on its results. The product is currently available in less than 1% of Wal-Mart’s 3,000 US stores and Tate & Lyle does not expect it to be launched. Even if it were however, the company said that table-top sweeteners form a very small part of its business and that the latest statement comes as a result of the high level of investor interest in sucralose. The company currently sells into over 4,000 products worldwide.

The success of sucralose, has prompted rival food groups to look at ways in which the intense sweetener can be manufactured on an industrial scale without infringing on Tate & Lyle’s patents. Most recently, Indian based Pharmed Medicare claimed in January that it will introduce a second high quality source of sucralose. Sundeep Aurora President Pharmed Medicare (P) Ltd. had said in a statement, “produced by a proprietary process which is patent pending, our product is of exceptional purity. In the first phase we are building a 1000 metric tonnes per year plant. Our process is environmentally friendly and is without the use of phosgene.”

Aurora said that Pharmed Medicare has a substantial portfolio of process patent applications, which have been reviewed by leading legal counsel in USA, Asia and Europe. “We believe that the combination of our patent portfolio with the existing Tate & Lyle portfolio will pose a significant challenge to any third commercially viable non-patent infringing manufacturer”, he stated.

But Tate & Lyle were adamant that there is no evidence that low cost alternatives to sucralose exist. “We have always said that sucralose can be made on a laboratory scale by companies. But on a commercial scale is a different matter, when you take into account purity and quality challenges in the process – you need the proper know-how”, Hudson said.