12th Mar 2019 09:34
LONDON (Alliance News) - PureCircle Ltd on Tuesday said its loss widened in the first half of its current financial year as it continues to invest in research & development of its stevia sweeteners.
In addition, the company has appointed Mitch Adamek, chair of its remuneration committee, as a non-executive director responsible for workforce engagement.
The sweetener producer reported a sharply widened loss in the six months to the end of December 2018 of USD25.4 million compared to just USD1.8 million loss a year earlier, due to a USD24.2 million inventory write-down related to by-products generated from previous varieties of leaf.
With the introduction of better tasting and yielding, the commercial value of these by-products been impaired due to their limited production in the future, the company explained.
Revenue declined by 5.2% to USD50.7 million from USD53.5 million.
"In the first half we continued to successfully implement our new strategy of transforming the business to produce and sell superior tasting natural stevia sweeteners, scaling breakthrough products and commercialising new technologies," said Chief Executive Magomet Malsagov.
PureCircle launched its Stevia agronomy programme in 2016, which included USD100 million of investment.
Previously the company used stevia as a plant-based, zero-calorie, single-ingredient sweetener. PureCircle now offers new generation stevia leaf sweetener ingredients, including Reb M and Reb D, which have "the most" sugar-like taste and zero calories.
"We are pleased with the early wins and positive feedback we are getting about the great taste profile of our next generation stevia Reb M sweeteners," added Malsagov.
PureCircle shares were trading 1.8% lower on Tuesday at 242.40 pence each.
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