Royal visit as Tate & Lyle celebrates 130 years
HM The Queen and the HRH The Duke of Edinburgh visited Tate & Lyle’s historic sugar refinery in Silvertown, London, to commemorate 130 years of sugar refining at the site.
Thames Refinery began production in 1878 when Queen Victoria was on the throne and Disraeli was prime minister. Twenty-three prime ministers and five monarchs later the refinery is still going strong and Tate & Lyle sugar remains one of the nation’s most well-known household brands.
Tate & Lyle has processed cane sugar from African, Caribbean and Pacific countries for 130 years – even keeping production going through the London Blitz despite several direct hits – and today processes around one million tonnes of sugar every year.
The company has just announced that it would start the process of switching its entire UK retail cane sugars range to Fairtrade by the end of 2009, beginning with 1kg bags of white granulated cane sugar.
Ian Bacon, chief executive of Tate & Lyle Sugars said,“It is a great honour that Her Majesty and The Duke of Edinburgh visited our historic site and met so many of our employees. These are exciting times. We are in the process of moving our entire retail cane sugars range to Fairtrade and are making significant investments at the refinery, including a novel biomass boiler which will cut fossil fuel consumption by 70% from 2009. Investments and innovation will help us ensure we remain a well-loved UK institution for the next 130 years.
