Sugar-cane restrictions are up for renegotiation, which could play into Tate & Lyle’s hands
The owner of one of Britain's oldest and most distinctive brands has labelled the UK's departure from the EU as the "biggest opportunity of our lifetime".
Tate & Lyle, most famous in the UK for its golden syrup said that removing the shackles of EU quotas and tariffs would mean that it could increase production to a more efficient level.
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"Leaving the EU is the biggest opportunity of our lifetime… For us the real uncertainty was the status quo," said senior vice-president of Tate & Lyle Gerald Mason.
The group, whose operations can be traced back to Henry Tate's Liverpool business that was set up in 1869, focuses on producing products from sugar-cane, most of which must be imported from outside the Eurozone.
Significant tariffs are in place on such imports in order to protect EU sugar-beet producers, driving up Tate & Lyle's cost base. Mason said: "We can be spending as much as €3m in import tariff per ship."
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However, Britain's separation from the EU provides a unique opportunity to the the company to do-away with import restrictions.
Sugar-cane restrictions will not disappear overnight and will likely remain in place until at least March 2019. Nevertheless, Mason said that Tate & Lyle had already engaged with the UK sugar-beet sector and both are likely to be pushing for a hard Brexit in order to gain certainty for the years to come.