The $46 million investment will generate 612 jobs, according to the governor’s office.

As part of its package of strategic economic incentives, the state of Missouri awarded Mamtek $7.6 million in Missouri Quality Jobs Program tax credits and $6.8 million in Missouri BUILD program tax credits.

The state also provided $2 million in Community Development Block Grant Industrial Infrastructure Program grant funds; $800,000 in funding for job training; and $368,000 for employment recruitment and referral services.

Additional funding is being provided by $37 million in bond sales initiated, structured and committed by the city of Moberly and $8 million from private investors. Moberly also has made more than $500,000 in grants and services available to Mamtek, according to the state.

“At a time when too many American companies are shuttering their plants and moving jobs overseas, we are thrilled to have a global company creating hundreds of good manufacturing jobs right here in Missouri,” Gov. Jay Nixon said. “These jobs will be a significant boost to Missouri’s economy and our manufacturing sector, and they’re another positive sign that our economy is beginning to move forward. I am pleased that my administration was able to provide a competitive package of strategic economic incentives to help bring these jobs to Missouri.”

Mamtek produces sucralose, a no-calorie sweetener used in carbonated beverages, baked goods and other food products. The company is owned by Chinese and American partners.

The state Department of Environmental Conservation wants to modify American Sugar Refining’s permit for its plant at 1 Federal St. on Yonker’s southwestern shore.

The company processes raw sugar into consumer products under the Domino brand and draws its cooling water from the Hudson River, into which it returns the used water.

Wastewater from the sugar plant is sent to the county’s treatment plant to the south.

The DEC wants the refinery to do a study to determine the plant’s impact on the river’s fish; monitor its stormwater runoff; and adopt a best management practices plan.

A Tate & Lyle statement said this came as the company battled to control its net debt, which sat at $2.42billion (814million Pounds) at March 31 this year.

On July 1, the company announced that it was selling its entire European Union sugar operations for $629.1million (211m Pounds) in cash to American Sugar Refining – which is one of the oldest and largest sugar companies in the United States.

Tate & Lyle Sugars President Ian Bacon confirmed that he would respond soon to Fiji Times questions on the impact of the sale on Fiji’s 300,000 tonne per year sugar contract with the company.

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“The situation is worrisome, because we are already working at full capacity and the rain will slow us down,” said Paulo Roberto de Souza, chief executive officer of Sao Paulo-based Copersucar, which owns the second- biggest sugar terminal at the Port of Santos.

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John Sheptor, CEO and Chairman of Imperial Sugar.

Imperial Sugar Company’s (ISC) settlement with the Occupational Safety & Health Administration (OSHA) now positions the company to focus even more on improving workplace safety and driving its best practices across the food-processing industry worldwide.

“Imperial Sugar is pleased to resolve the citations,” said CEO and President John Sheptor. “Imperial agreed to the terms with OSHA in order to settle these matters expeditiously and amicably, and to allow us to better concentrate our resources toward not only enhancing the safety of our own facilities, but also to assist the sugar industry as a whole in addressing workplace hazards.”

Imperial Sugar was cited by OSHA in July 2008 for alleged safety violations at its Port Wentworth and Gramercy, La., facilities with a combined proposed penalty totaling $8.7 million.

As ISC rebuilt its Port Wentworth operations after a deadly explosion and fire, Sheptor led the company in creating an industry model for better worker safety, improved food-quality processes and greater manufacturing efficiencies.

Since the OSHA citations were issued, Imperial Sugar has worked with leading experts to collect and develop, through testing and other research efforts, information about the hazards of combustible dust specific to the sugar industry.

Ronald Allen, Sr. Director of Environmental Health and Safety

Sheptor noted: “Imperial’s extensive studies have guided us in implementing new hazard controls as we rebuilt our Port Wentworth facility as well as our existing facility in Gramercy.”

Ron Allen, senior director of environmental health and safety, is among the hundreds of leaders and employees at ISC’s refineries in Port Wentworth and Gramercy who’ve worked side-by-side to develop new standards and raise performance levels – benefiting the company and the sugar industry alike.

Allen, who also is the company’s chief safety officer, says Imperial Sugar’s efforts and solutions over the past couple of years have involved several areas, including:

• Improved engineering controls: ISC conducted thorough studies comparing its operations against National Fire Protection Association Standards – done with the support of globally recognized experts in the field of combustible dust.
• Stronger administrative controls: The company introduced new housekeeping procedures, as well as preventative maintenance, to ensure that conditions don’t develop that could lead to a combustible dust explosion.
• Rigorous employee training: Imperial Sugar developed professionally recognized, computer-based training modules on combustible dust, which didn’t exist previously.

“We have learned much from our experts and our own studies regarding combustible dust, and we are sharing our knowledge throughout the industry to help others to be aware of the hazards of combustible dust,” Sheptor says.

Port Wentworth silo relief panels.

The results of ISC’s research and initiatives continue to be shared with global sugar manufacturers and trade associations, as well as with ISC customers – many of whom handle combustible food materials in their own business.

Allen is quick to point how Imperial Sugar collaborated with OSHA officials in striving to raise industry safety standards for manufacturers by promoting a new combustible dust standard for OSHA, along with spreading the word through public forums for improvements.

Sheptor commended OSHA for its dedication to worker safety, and reiterated Imperial Sugar’s commitment to adhering to and exceeding its obligations under the OSH Act. “We are working diligently to become our industry leader in workplace safety.”

Reinforced packaging walls at Gramercy plant.

Reflecting on everyone’s dedication and diligence, Allen says: “When we do our work, often times it’s really in memory in those who lost their lives and in our commitment to not allow that to happen again.

“So, the progress we’ve made at Imperial is, in a large part, a tribute to the memories of whose lives were lost or were injured.”

Singapore’s second-biggest listed company, the $31 billion agribusiness conglomerate bested China’s Bright Food Group at the post with a cash offer of $1.75bn, which has been unanimously accepted by CSR’s board. But it is subject to approval by the Foreign Investment Review Board and New Zealand’s Overseas Investment Office.

China’s state-owned Bright Food, which has been pursuing CSR for more than six months, was “simply not nimble enough to come up with the right price at the right time”, an analyst says.

Wilmar is headed by the formidable Khoon Hong Kuok as chairman and chief executive, reputedly a “man of convictions who knows what he wants and is able to make decisions”, the analyst says.

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Darrell Gerdes, manager of research and new product development, checks first samples of SteviaCane, Imperial Sugar's new natural sweetener.

Imperial Sugar Company (ISC) may have cracked the code in creating an all-natural, reduced-sugar sweetener that has a taste profile indistinguishable from sugar. But the proof will be in the pudding –or, to be more precise, in 1,500 commercially produced cookies.

An ISC team will unveil the cookies made with the new sweetener called “Steviacane™” – a product made from sugar and stevia – at July’s annual meeting and food expo of the Institute of Food Technologists (IFT) in Chicago.

Powdered stevia is measured before being added to Imperial sugar to make the new SteviaCane sweetener.

“Our product gives a clean sugar flavor,” says Darrell Gerdes, manager of research and new product development for ISC. “In taste panels, when people compared the taste of Steviacane to pure sugar and plain stevia powder, the taste profile for Steviacane scored exactly the same as sugar.”

Since February of this year, when Imperial Sugar formed a joint venture with stevia producer PureCircle, Gerdes and the ISC R&D and operations team have been knee-deep in developing a new product that would combine the best of sugar and stevia. The process has required everything from an examination of stevia and sugar molecules, to running taste panels, to conducting a 72-hour commercial-scale test run of the product in the refinery – all within a five-month period.

The product-development pace has been fast, and with good reason: The team plans to do a limited-distribution test later this year that involves selling the packaged product in one of Imperial Sugar’s strategic retail partners. “We will conduct demonstrations in stores with iced tea or cookies made with the product. We want to see how well the public accepts Steviacane,” says Gerdes.

Darrold Sinn adds Imperial Sugar into a mixture with stevia to start the process of making SteviaCane.

Once the team has finished refining the production process, they can look toward other consumer and industrial possibilities for Steviacane. “We’ve already begun looking at the possibility of producing Steviacane products with different characteristics and properties. So far, we have been very encouraged by what we have seen,” he says.

SteviaCane cane be delivered to customers as a liquid, as well as a solid.

Gerdes explains that Steviacane is being tested with three different reductions of sugar – 35 percent, 50 percent and 75 percent. At the 50-percent threshold, Steviacane and sugar have the same taste profile.

“With a taste panel, 10 or 12 people whose tongues are trained to identify certain characteristics will describe what they’re tasting and at what level. It’s not about ‘liking’ or ‘disliking’ a product.”

So, it’s possible that Steviacane may be produced with all three formulations – 35 percent, 50 percent and 75 percent sugar reduction. As Gerdes says, “The sugar reduction depends on who’s going to be using the product for what.”

With the introduction of Steviacane, the company is tapping into consumers’ and food manufacturers’ desire for a natural sweetener that uses less sugar, but that doesn’t impact finished product flavor.

“This is a significant step forward for the sweetener industry,” Gerdes says. “To be honest, this has been the most exciting and challenging product-development project I have been involved with. And making 1,500 great cookies for food science professionals at the IFT meeting will be the icing on the cake.”

The Supreme Court this week cleared the way for Vilsack too permit the sale of the biotech seed again by lifting a judge’s nationwide ban on the crop.

The lawmakers, many of whom are from states with significant organic farming, say the crop is going to contaminate non-biotech alfalfa crops and harm the organic dairy industry.

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Rising domestic sugar production makes it “unnecessary to extend the reassignment of the import quota,” the ministry said today in the Nation’s official gazette. The ministry didn’t say how many tons had been purchased for imports.

On Feb. 7, Mexico approved a quota to import 250,000 tons of sugar as dry weather hurt domestic output. Mexico created sugar import quotas in August 2009 after domestic prices reached a high of about 730 pesos ($57) per 50-kilogram bag on Sept. 14. Mexico’s sugar industry is regulated by the government, which sets import quotas.

Read the full report in Bloomberg.

“The acquisition of National Starch represents an exceptional opportunity for our Company and a significant step forward toward achieving our strategic goals,” said Ilene Gordon, Chairman, President and Chief Executive Officer of Corn Products International. “The acquisition aligns with our strategic priorities to grow our ingredient portfolio, increase our presence in priority food processing segments, enter new markets, and develop innovative solutions that better serve our customers.”

“Combining National Starch with Corn Products will create an ingredient solutions leader with nearly $5 billion in revenues, “Gordon added. “The combined company will benefit from leading, innovative technology; enhanced geographic scale; a broader and deeper product portfolio; and access to new market segments.”

National Starch is a recognized innovator in food ingredients and specialty starches. The company’s technologies are supported by a world-class research and development infrastructureand protected by more than 800 patents and patents pending, which drive the development of advanced specialty starches for the next generation of food products. National Starch had 2009 revenues of $1.2 billion from sales of specialty starches to both local and multinational customers in the food, papermaking, consumer and industrial segments. It has 2,250 employees around the world and operates 11 plants in eight countries, including new geographies for Corn Products such as the United Kingdom, Germany, Australia, and New Zealand.

National Starch is a leader in the development of specialty and modified starches – two of the ingredient solutions that Corn Products has identified as important to its ongoing growth. National Starch’s ingredient solutions, such as texturants, blends and environmentally “green” solutions, will broaden Corn Products’ offerings to its global customers.

“This acquisition gives us access to new markets such as Europe, and improves our scale and capabilities in many of our existing global locations,” said Gordon. “We will be able to better serve our global customers with our enhanced geographic footprint and the addition of National Starch’s technology. Further, we expect significant production efficiencies and cost synergies that will make us more competitive around the world.”

“We are acquiring National Starch, not just because of its products and manufacturing assets, but also because of its experienced and dedicated people,” Gordon added. “They bring to Corn Products exceptional know-how in ingredient development, solutions and applications, along with proven marketing and customer service skills.”

“We are confident that this acquisition will create lasting, long-term value for our shareholders,” Gordon said. The transaction is expected to generate cost synergies of at least $50 million, primarily from efficiencies in the areas of manufacturing, procurement, logistics and general & administrative functions.

“We expect to move quickly to integrate and attain synergy savings,” Gordon concluded.

On a cash basis, the transaction is expected to be accretive by the end of 2011.

The acquisition, which has been approved by the Boards of Directors of both Corn Products International and AkzoNobel, is expected to close in the third quarter of 2010, subject to customary regulatory approvals.

The Company expects to finance the transaction through cash, debt and new equity. Corn Products is committed to maintaining its investment grade rating.

J.P. Morgan Securities Inc. acted as exclusive financial advisor to Corn Products International.

“Producers made some statements in the last couple of days that potentially prices are going to pull back a little bit,” said Richard Ilczyszyn, a senior market strategist at Lind- Waldock, a broker in Chicago. The market was “getting a little bit exhausted to the upside. Some of the technical indicators are indicating it’s a little bit overdone,” he said.

Prices climbed in the previous five sessions, jumping 12 percent. Sugar has slumped 41 percent this year, partly on speculation that global production will increase.

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“It’s the best feeling,” Chef Samuelsson said afterward on Bravo tv.com, acknowledging the tough competition. “I am so humbled and grateful for the opportunity.”

Chef Marcus Samuelsson won Bravo's Top Chef Masters 2010 competition. He uses and advocates Wholesome Sweetener products.

Chef Samuelsson’s winning dishes told his life story, which is a particularly interesting one. He was born in Ethiopia, adopted by Swedish parents, and grew up with his Swedish grandmother, who inspired him to cook. Now, he is rediscovering his African heritage, bringing it to the U.S. with his new culinary style. With Bravo’s Top Chef Masters award, Chef Samuelsson wins $100,000 for the UNICEF’s Tap project, which brings fresh water to children in Africa.

Chef Samuelsson is a staunch advocate of fair trade, which is why he has aligned himself with Wholesome Sweeteners’ products by appearing on packaging and mentioning the benefits of the sweeteners in his cookbook, The Soul of a New Cuisine.

He writes: “Brown sugar is manufactured throughout the African continent. My favorite is a fair-trade raw cane demerara from Malawi, which is sold under Wholesome Sweeteners brand at many upscale grocery stores. It has an intense, multifaceted flavor that really stands out in recipes.”

Two of Chef Samuelsson’s favorite recipes made with Wholesome’s products? Coconut Cookies and Ginger Citrus Cookies.

Wholesome Sweeteners’ advocate and agave user Chef Rick Bayless won the Top Chef Masters 2009 competition when his 27-ingredient Mole sauce, which took him 25 years to master, propelled him to the top slot. Both Bayless and Samuelsson have been guest chefs for President Obama’s recent State dinners for the Mexican and Indian Heads of State visits.

China’s sugar shortage was projected at 780,000 tonnes for the current year, Liu Hande, vice chairman of the China Sugar Association, was quoted as saying in the China Securities Journal.

He estimated China’s sugar supply for the year at 13.22 million tonnes, including 10.7 million tonnes of production and 2 million tonnes of state sugar reserves, plus an estimated 500,000 tonnes of sugar imports. Consumption, meanwhile, was likely to hit 14 million tonnes.

The shortage could grow to 1 million tonnes in 2010/2011, estimated Liu, with domestic output seen at 12.7 million tonnes while consumption could grow to between 14.7 to 15 million tonnes, he said.

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Cocoa beverages formulated with stevia produced “the most balanced attributes” when tested by a panel of 15 tasters, according to findings published in the Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry.

“On the basis of these results, it can be seen that panellists preferred the drinks made with stevia sweetener, because it tasted well, was moderately sweet, and provided a well-balanced flavour and taste, which indicates a great potential of using this sweetener,” wrote the researchers, led by Drazenka Komes from the Faculty of Food Technology and Biotechnology at the University of Zagreb.

On the other hand, the scientists also report that the highest scores for sweetness were observed for beverages formulated with a blend of aspartame and acesulfame K, indicating the potential of different formulations, according to local preferences.

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