Global ingredients company Tate & Lyle, has signed agreements to acquire U.S. specialty food ingredients company Continental Custom Ingredients (CCI) and the Italian based Cesalpinia Group. The transactions are expected to be completed by the first quarter of 2006.

Orafti Active Food Ingredients is consolidating its fiber ingredient product line beneath the Beneo™ brand umbrella. The company says consumers in many parts of the world have come to recognize the health benefits of its ingredients via the Beneo™ trademark on retail product labels.

German Symrise, one of the world’s leading suppliers of fragrances and flavors, will further expand its Nördlingen, Germany production site. Symrise will invest nearly $1 million in new production facilities as well as laboratory and application technology. The company is also working on a state-of-the-art pilot plant for extraction and distillation.

Researcher Chantal Smout was the recent recipient of the 9th International Georg Carl Hahn Research Prize presented by G. C. HAHN & Co. in Lübeck, Germany. Smout, 35, of Belgium, was recognized for her work on controlling the enzymatic activity in fruit and vegetable products through endogenous and exogenous pectinases.