Biscuits, gummies and seaweed: the Tate & Lyle boss who’s moved on from sugar
Biscuits, gummies and seaweed: the Tate & Lyle boss who’s moved on from sugar
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Nick Hampton, the head of the modern, low-calorie version of the historic food company, is in charge of a quest to create new ingredients. A plate of Rich Tea biscuits is prominently placed in the centre of the table as Tate & Lyle chief executive Nick Hampton sits down at its swish London headquarters.
![[Sarah Butler]](https://i.guim.co.uk/img/uploads/2022/11/09/Sarah_Butler_Next_Gen.png?width=75&dpr=1&s=none&crop=none)
His 104-year-old company’s name may be synonymous with the sugar – and Golden Syrup – found on supermarket shelves, but Hampton has had a different part to play in creating one of the nation’s favourite dunkers. Tate & Lyle creates a plethora of ingredients which offer an alternative to that sweet stuff – including extra fibre and sugar replacement in the biscuits.
Hampton’s business has existed in its current form since 2010, when its sugar arm – now known as Tate & Lyle Sugars – was sold off to American Sugar Refining for £211m, while his business remained listed on the stock market. In fact, it is the only member of the original FT-30 group of listed companies, created in 1935, still on the London stock market. “Part of the reason for that is nothing we do today we did more than 30 years ago,” says Hampton of the business, which was formed in 1921 from a merger of two rival sugar refiners. Its origins stretch back even further, to a sugar refiner on Liverpool docks in 1859.
Hampton, a slick executive who spent more than nine years at PepsiCo after a stint at management consultancy Monitor, has been at the helm for nearly seven years. He is continuing to transform the business to provide alternatives to sugar, which is being taxed and blamed in part for the UK’s obesity crisis.
