Who Owns Tate & Lyle?

Tate & Lyle was formed in 1921 by the merger of two rival London sugar refining businesses: Henry Tate & Sons, founded in 1859, and Abram Lyle & Sons, founded in the 1880s. Both companies had built refineries on the Thames and competed intensely for decades before combining to create one of Britain's largest industrial companies.

For most of the twentieth century, Tate & Lyle was synonymous with sugar. Its Lyle's Golden Syrup, first produced in 1885 and sold in the same tin design since 1904, holds a Guinness World Record as the world's oldest unchanged brand packaging. The company operated cane refineries in London and Liverpool, sugar estates abroad, and bulk sweetener businesses across Europe and North America.

A strategic transformation began in the 2000s as European sugar policy reforms squeezed refining margins. In 2010 the company sold its European sugar refining business, including the historic Tate & Lyle Sugars brand, to American Sugar Refining for approximately GBP 211 million, ending nearly 150 years of sugar refining under the Tate & Lyle name. The retail sugar and golden syrup brands continue under different ownership, a frequent source of confusion.

The refocused company invested in specialty ingredients: sucralose (developed through its Tastewise partnership history and sold under the Splenda-derived TATE & LYLE Sucralose name), soluble fibers such as Promitor, starch-based texturants, and stevia sweeteners. In 2021 it sold a controlling stake in its North American bulk sweetener and primary products business to KPS Capital Partners, completing its exit from commodity sweeteners.

The November 2024 acquisition of CP Kelco from J.M. Huber Corporation for approximately $1.8 billion marked the largest deal in the company's modern history and moved its center of gravity decisively toward specialty texturants and nature-based ingredients. For the year ended March 31, 2026, the first full year including CP Kelco, group revenue was GBP 2,006 million, up 16 percent on a reported basis but 3 percent lower on a pro forma like-for-like basis amid soft market demand.