1957 a certain brand of Bitter was found to be smelling of perfume, the problem was traced to a fungus living in the Persian oak used for the barrels. This was resolved by steam treating the staves and tops.
A history of Tate & Lyle
The Tate & Lyle Group has grown from the separate cane sugar refining businesses of Henry Tate and Abram Lyle founded in the late 19th century. Through mergers and acquisitions with equally well-established businesses around the globe and innovative partnerships with new and exciting ventures, Tate & Lyle has become a world-leading renewable ingredients company.
The lion and the bee
The Lyle's Golden Syrup trademark depicts a quotation from the Bible. In Book of Judges, Chapter 14, Samson was travelling to the land of the Philistines in search of a wife. During the journey he killed a lion, and on his return past the same spot he noticed that a swarm of bees had formed a comb of honey in the carcass. Samson later turned this into a riddle at a wedding: "Out of the eater came forth meat and out of the strong came forth sweetness". While no one is sure why this quotation was chosen, we do know that such a quotation would have greatly appealed to the deeply religious Abram Lyle.
5th Century BC - A Fabulous Delicacy
Sugar was first discovered in India in the 5th century BC, and first used as a food in Polynesia. Alexander the Great introduced sugar as a sweetener into Mediterranean countries during the 4th century BC, and use spread to North Africa and Southern Spain.
Sugar arrived in England around 1100, brought back by returning Crusaders. Yet it remained a rare delicacy for several hundred years, and in the 1500s a one-hundred-ton shipload of sugar was worth about a million pounds at today's prices.
Venice became the hub of the world sugar trade in the 16th century, but Antwerp was the centre for sugar refining. It was Columbus who took sugar cane cuttings from the Canary Islands to the West Indies, where they thrived in the hot climate.
Imported cane sugar dominated world sugar trade until the 19th century, when continental Europe began to produce beet sugar, while other temperate zones challenged cane's supremacy. In this time of change, Henry Tate and Abram Lyle took the opportunity to found their own sugar businesses based in the UK.
1859 - The refining Henry Tate
A minister's son, Henry Tate was born in 1819 in Chorley, Lancashire in the UK. At the age of 20 Henry began his career as a grocer's apprentice to his elder brother Caleb. He went on to buy his own grocery store, and by the age of 36 was a successful businessman, with a chain of six shops in the Liverpool area.
His first venture into cane refining came in 1859 when he formed a partnership with John Wright, who was already a refiner operating in Liverpool. When that partnership came to an end, Tate was joined by his two sons, Alfred and Edwin, in Henry Tate & Sons.
Henry had an eye for innovations and technological advances, and during the construction of the Love Lane Refinery in Liverpool, he adapted the plans so he could incorporate a new refining technique to increase the yield of white sugar. When the refinery became operational in 1872, it was producing 400 tons of sugar a week.
Tate was keen to extend his business, and saw London as a potentially profitable market. In 1878 he opened his refinery at Silvertown in East London.
Henry Tate was created a baronet in 1898 and died in 1899, having endowed his collection of contemporary paintings to the nation. He made bequeaths to many causes, including support for the building of the famous Tate Gallery, now known as Tate Britain.
1859 - Tate & Lyle's early links to the Caribbean
Tate & Lyle has trading links to the Caribbean dating back to Henry Tate purchasing sugar from 1859 onwards. At this time, the region was dependent on its cane sugar industry and under pressure from European beet sugar production. Tate & Lyle first took an interest in Caribbean plantations in 1936 (following the British Government’s forced purchase of its domestic sugar beet business) but today purchases sugar from cane growers rather than planting direct.
Tate & Lyle continues to enjoy a successful long-standing trading relationship with the Caribbean. The Company acts as the most important bridge to Europe for African, Caribbean and Pacific (ACP) and Least Developed (LDC) countries. Tate & Lyle takes some 1.29m tonnes of their annual production, the vast majority of these countries' long-held entitlement to sell about 1.5m tonnes of sugar every year into the EU. As a result of this access to the EU, which we facilitate, our ACP and LDC suppliers currently receive £150m - £200m more for their sugar than would otherwise be the case because we are required to buy this sugar from them at the EU-established price.
Throughout the various phases of our history, Tate & Lyle’s role in the Caribbean economy has always been a beneficial one, based on providing, though our technical efficiency and innovation, the ability for Caribbean sugar producers to maintain their market presence in Europe in the face of the increasingly efficient and protected domestic beet industry.
1865 - A golden age for Abram Lyle
Born in 1820 in Greenock, Scotland, Abram Lyle started his working life at the age of 12 as an apprentice in a lawyer's office, before joining his father's cooperage businesses. He subsequently developed his career in shipping in partnership with his friend, John Kerr. The Lyle fleet grew to become one of the largest in Greenock.
As a cooper and shipowner, Abram was involved in transporting sugar for many years. In 1865, he added sugar refining to his business interests through his purchase, with four partners, of the Glebe Sugar Refinery. After the death of the principal partner, John Kerr, in 1872, Lyle sold his shares and looked for a site for a new refinery.
In 1883 Abram Lyle & Sons started melting sugar in the Plaistow Refinery, just a mile-and-a-half from Henry Tate's refinery.
Lyle knew that the sugar cane refining process produced a treacly syrup that usually went to waste - but could be refined to make a delicious preserve and sweetener for cooking. "Goldie" was made from the very start, in small but increasing quantities. The syrup was poured into wooden casks and sold to employees and local customers. Word spread even faster than the syrup - and in a few short months, a tonne a week was being sold.
Wooden casks soon gave way to large Lyle's Golden Syrup dispensers that were placed on shelves of grocery stores. Lyle's Golden Syrup was first filled into tins in 1885. Today more than a million tins leave the Plaistow factory on the banks of the River Thames each month.
Abram Lyle died in 1891, leaving his sons to carry on the business at Plaistow Wharf.
1873 - An energetic start to glucose business
In 1873, just one year after Tate and sons opened their Liverpool refinery, the Callebaut Brothers and Joseph Lejeune established the SA Callebaut Fréres et Lejeune glucose plant in Aalst, Belgium, which would later become the Amylum Group.
The group began their business to serve the local brewing industry. While Joseph Lejeune and Edouard Callebaut concentrated on technical matters, overseeing production and the purchase of raw materials, oldest brother Philemon took responsibility for financial transactions, assisted by Felix Callebaut. In 1878 another younger brother, Prosper, became a co-director, and after the death of Philemon he went on to found Callebaut Frères. Prosper was the first employer in Belgium to grant a pension to retired staff - one Belgian franc a day.
In 1926 the Callebaut brothers merged their business with the Ancienne Firme Blieck Frères into a new company, called Glucoseries Réunies. Today, the business they founded is one of Europe's largest starch producers. (Part of tate and lyle?)
1878 - The story of two men and a refinery
Today Tate & Lyle is the only cane sugar refiner in the UK and its brand name is one of the best known. A century ago it was a very different picture. In 1864 there were 74 refineries in the country with many families, such as the MacFies, Martineaus, Fairries, Walkers and Kerrs, involved in the sugar-refining process. It was against this background of competition that Henry Tate and Abram Lyle began their respective sugar businesses.
While Tate"s new Thames refinery began operations in 1878, specialising in cube sugar, Lyle's refinery at Plaistow, also on the Thames, opened in 1883 and soon specialised in Golden Syrup production.
By 1939, the operations of Tate and Lyle had merged, and the Thames refinery had become the largest cane sugar refinery in the world, producing 14,000 tons a week, while Plaistow produced 8,500 tons and Liverpool 10,000 tons.
To cope with the increase in output, a new pan house was built at Plaistow. It was an impressive building, standing 180ft (about 55m) high, which would all too soon become a target for the Luftwaffe…
1921 - The year of the ampersand
Once the competing sugar refinery firms of Henry Tate and Abram Lyle had set up operations next to each other in East London, competition was intense. Yet there does seem to have been a tacit understanding that Lyle would not produce sugar cubes and Tate would not venture into golden syrup production.
Both businesses experienced difficult times, as sugar-cane importers faced new competition from European sugar-beet. By the First World War three times as much sugar-beet was being imported into Britain as sugar-cane. However, the war destroyed many beet growing areas, and demand for sugar-cane rose once more. By this time, Henry Tate and Abram Lyle were refining 50% of the country's sugar between them.
In 1921 the two companies of Tate and Lyle merged to form Tate & Lyle. The intense competition mellowed into friendly rivalry between the two refineries known to employees as "Tateses" and "Lyleses". At the same time, expansion for the new company continued apace in both beet and sugar-cane, and through acquisition of smaller UK refiners.
Modernisation arrived in the form of the first Tate & Lyle packaging machine, made by Hesser of Stuttgart. Replacing sacks with pre-weighted and printed cartons, this early robot revolutionised the way that sugar was sold.
1949 - Mr Cube takes up arms
In the post-World War II era, the socialist government of Clement Attlee pursued a policy of nationalisation for key UK industries. By 1949 it had become apparent that the British sugar industry - and more specifically Tate & Lyle - was to be included in the plan.
On the 10th of February a meeting of the board at Tate & Lyle signalled the beginning of a fierce campaign to thwart the government's plans. Spearheading the campaign was a cartoon character, Mr Cube, drawn by artist Bobby St John Cooper.
Mr Cube fast became a household name. Appearing on sugar packets and in the press, and even travelling the country with the "Speakers Team", which had been formed by Tate & Lyle employees, Mr Cube helped present the Company's eventually successful case for independence.
1965 - Sticking with a prosperous partnership
Tate & Lyle Molasses began life in Liverpool in 1910, with the name Marquis, as a firm of cattle feed importers. Under the ownership of the Dane Sir Michael Kroyer Kielberg, the company began shipping molasses in bulk, using a custom-built 3,000-ton storage tank in Hull.
In 1925 Kielberg moved to London and renamed his incorporated company to become United Molasses. As he found new competitively priced sources of molasses, Kielberg required a new longer-range and faster fleet of vessels. To meet the demand, the Athel Line was launched with 16 vessels. The fleet was to see many losses to enemy action during the Second World War.
In 1937 Kielberg sold his Liverpool sugar refinery to Tate & Lyle, and in return was invited to become a co-investor in Tate & Lyle's new West Indies raw sugar ventures. This was the beginning of a prosperous relationship between the two companies.
Kielberg retired in 1953, and ten years later United Molasses was bought by Tate & Lyle for £30 million. With this acquisition, Tate & Lyle became the world leader in the molasses trade.
1976 - Taking an interest in starch
In the first of a series of events that shaped the modern day Tate & Lyle, the company acquired a one-third stake in Amylum in 1976, which established for the first time a major interest in cereal sweetener and starch-based manufacturing. This interest was to be increased 12 years later.
Tate & Lyle's starches and cereal sweeteners can be used to give energy to sports drinks, replace fats in yoghurts, add sheen to fruit pies, help heat dissipate in microwave meals and improve shelf-life. Our industrial starches add strength and texture to realms of paper and board across the world.
2004 - Fashion that won't cost the earth
In 2004 Tate & Lyle and DuPont announced a new U.S. joint venture to produce Bio-PDO textile polymer ingredient from renewable resources for use in DuPont™ Sorona® . Sorona® polymers are stain, UV and chlorineresistant with excellent "stretch and recovery", and are exceptionally gentle to the touch making them ideal for a range of purposes, such as swimwear, clothing, car seating and carpets.
Importantly, Bio-PDO is produced from renewable resources and replaces petrochemicals, using less energy and producing fewer emissions than synthetic production methods.
Tate & Lyle Fact
Using polymer ingredient Bio-PDO to make DuPont™ Sorona® in place of the original chemical method saves 600,000 barrels (a staggering 92 million litres) of oil a year.
There are now commercial models of oil refinery structures including some tall towers on the model railway market, however if you are broke they are not too difficult to make. Start with a suitable tube, you can use a cut-down ping pong ball for the top (cut in half, glue to the tube, trim with scissors, finish the trim with toenail clippers). The pipework on the sides are various thicknesses of wire and a straw can be used for the big gas pipe coming down from the top, modern straws have a handy 'bendy' bit that looks well on a refinery. Man holes in the sides of the towers are disks of plastic cut with a paper hole punch and bedded onto a blob of Milliput, The ladders are from signal laddering, man loops can be cut from drinking straws (although gluing these can be tricky, test a sample before doing a lot of work). Hand rails can be added using etched signal laddering (O gauge can be used as-is, OO gauge needs supports) or Slaters brass wire (rose wire and most other wires are not stiff enough to survive).
Also produced at the refineries are the Liquid Petroleum Gasses (LPG), such as Butane, Propane and Ammonia. These are liquefied (usually by refrigeration) and mainly stored in spherical tanks (see Lineside Industries - Prototype industrial ancillary structures) before being shipped out in pressurised tank wagons. The BP refinery at Llandarcy (opened in 1928 and the UK's first crude oil refinery) was only source of marketable propane was produced, production began there in 1936, stopped during the war, and was resumed in 1951. Propane production at BP's Grangemouth refinery only started late in 1955.
Rail tanker LPG traffic only started in the later 1960's, prior to that date limited quantities were shipped in smaller pressure canisters and cylinders in standard railway wagons (although chlorine was shipped by rail pre-war). LPG is discussed in more detail below.