PureCircle, which produces sweetener products derived from stevia, has said that sales during the first half are expected to be 80 per cent higher than those seen in the same period of the previous year.

The firm has put forward a figure of $27.3m, $26m of which are expected to be high purity stevia sweeteners and natural flavors, a 120% improvement on the first half of 2012.

Growth was seen across all of its high purity ingredients, which it said was primarily driven by new innovations in our Stevia PureCircle proprietary portfolio of all-natural, no-calorie sweeteners and natural flavor systems.

Regionally, EMEA, Latin America, Asia Pacific, and the US, all recorded sales growth.

The group also revealed that at the end of the period, it had gross cash of $45m, net debt of $67m, and cash and facility headroom of $70m.

Group Chief Executive Officer Magomet Malsagov said: "Our strategy of having a fully controlled, vertically integrated supply chain from leaf to finished products, of successfully developing and introducing to the market new proprietary natural sweeteners and flavors, of investing in applications and formulations as well as in global marketing and customer service capabilities, is beginning to yield results as can be seen by our performance in the first half of this fiscal year.

"New long term supply and joint development agreements with major global food and beverage (F&B) companies have been signed adding to our already strong portfolio of Global Key Accounts. Across the world, large F&B brands began to adopt our ingredients, most notably carbonated soft drinks (CSD's) including the important Cola category.

"We generate revenues from a wide range of natural sweeteners and flavors and we service globally hundreds of customers directly and through our business partners."

The share price dipped 1.00% to 248.50p by 13:20.

NR

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