There they were exposed to bacteria which now had the job of breaking the sugar into succinic acid, a colorless, odorless substance that is heavily used in the food industry as a sweetener but can also be used in the production of a wide variety of materials, including medicines, bioplastics and even laundry detergent.

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Carraguard is the proprietary name of a substance made from carrageenan, a carbohydrate gel derived from seaweeds that is widely used as a stabiliser in the food industry.

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The expansion enables the firm to produce lactose - an ingredient widely-used by the food industry in products such as confectionary - for customers across the UK and Europe.

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The grain is one of the key starting links in the country's food chain, used to make cooking oil, tofu products and in feed for the burgeoning pig industry.

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These have been used in laboratories (even by NASA) to detect trace chemicals, but they are now being applied to the food industry in the effort to monitor food at its most refined level.

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