Legal action against Chinese Splenda copies

The sugar company Tate & Lyle launched legal action yesterday against a Chinese company that stands accused of stealing its sucralose manufacturing technology as well as six importers of sucralose into the US. A cut-price version of Tate & Lyle s big-selling artificial sweetener Splenda appeared in some stores of the US retail giant Wal-Mart at the start of the year. The concern said that it had analysed samples of the product, called Altern, and concluded that it contained an active ingredient of Chinese origin. Altern is now on sale at Wal-Mart stores across the US. Previously, Wal-Mart was forced to withdraw a first batch of sweetener that was identical to Tate & Lyle s sucralose.