Sugar was discovered in India in the 5th century BC, and first enjoyed as a food in Polynesia. Alexander the Great introduced sugar as a sweetener into Mediterranean countries during the 4th century BC, and its popularity spread to North Africa and Southern Spain.

Sugar arrived in England around 1100, brought back by returning Crusaders. Yet it remained a rare delicacy for several hundred years, and in the 1500s a one-hundred-ton shipload of sugar was worth about a million pounds at today's prices.

Venice became the hub of the world sugar trade in the 16th century, but Antwerp was the centre for sugar refining. It was Christopher Columbus who took sugar cane cuttings from the Canary Islands to the West Indies, where they thrived in the hot climate.

Imported cane sugar dominated world sugar trade until the 19th century, when continental Europe began to produce beet sugar, while other temperate zones challenged cane's supremacy. In this time of change, Henry Tate and Abram Lyle took the opportunity to found their own sugar businesses based in the UK.

For more on the story of sugar, read How is Sugar Made or The Tate & Lyle Story