29 Jul 2010 07:00
| PureCircle Limited ("PureCircle or the Company")
PureCircle begins processing Africa and South America sourced leaf and expands its stevia agriculture into the USA PureCircle (LSE:PURE), the world's leading producer and marketer of high purity stevia products, today announces two further milestones in its global quality leaf sourcing strategy. Proprietary high quality African and South American stevia leaf now being processed The Company has started successfully processing leaf sourced from both Kenya and Paraguay in its stevia extract facilities in China. The high quality proprietary leaf is, as expected, performing well, providing actual production yields significantly above those of the prevailing China market and further reducing the cost of SG95 and Reb A substantially. It is worth noting that PureCircle's proprietary high quality leaf planted in Africa and South America is protected through Plant Breeders' Rights. The processing of protected varietal leaf from Africa and South America is an important milestone in PureCircle's successful expansion and diversification of our supply chain. The early results are encouraging and underpin the Company's intentions to start constructing stevia extract facilities in both Africa and South America as soon as current capacities are beyond 50 per cent utilisation. New USA based leaf supply partnership combined with research and varietal development The company announces that it has entered into a five year agreement to source stevia leaf from S&W Seed Company Inc.(NASDAQ symbol "SANW") and its subsidiary, based in Five Points, California. This brings large scale stevia cultivation to the USA and is another milestone in PureCircle's worldwide expansion of stevia as a large volume commodity crop. PureCircle is leading the industry in ensuring stability and sufficiency of stevia supply even with the rapid expansion of consumer products entering the marketplace. In the US, the newly signed contract with S&W contains strong commercial incentives for growing stevia in the continental United States on the scale required to support major North American based food and beverage manufacturers. The relationship with S&W will also provide support for PureCircle's recently announced research and varietal development project, in conjunction with Michigan State University, focused on the next generation of steviol glycosides beyond Reb A. Magomet Malsagov, CEO and Managing Director of PureCircle, commented : "These are important milestones for our stevia supply chain. Our proprietary leaf from Kenya and Paraguay is performing well and underpins our plans to build extraction capacity in Africa and South America in the future." The signing of the S&W agreement will bring decades of related agronomic experience to partner with PureCircle in the development of proprietary stevia varieties in North America. Over the last 20 years S&W has developed world leading varieties of alfalfa seed, as verified by university trials. Grover Wickersham, Chairman of S &W Seed, Inc., said: "For 30 years, S&W has worked with Californian farmers to produce high quality agricultural products, while PureCircle has earned recognition as the world leader in the large scale production of Rebaudioside A (Reb A) from stevia leaf. PureCircle and S&W have partnered to improve stevia cultivation and develop new stevia varietals. We are very excited about working with PureCircle to produce the highest quality stevia in a way that is cost effective for food and beverage manufacturers."
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