• Sugar is an especially ubiquitous ingredient in Europe, where corn syrup is less often used as a sweetener.disperced lump sugar and sugar-basin image by Maria Brzostowska from Fotolia.com
  
  Most of us are familiar with the companies whose products end up on our grocery shelves, but the corporations that sell the ingredients to those companies are less visible to the public eye. They are, though, some of the largest companies in the world. They are heavily regulated by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA).
  
  

Cargill

• Although little more than a quarter of its total sales comes from products for the food industry, Cargill is the global leader in food ingredients as of 2010. It is also the largest privately held company in the United States. Cargill sells a wide range of FDA-approved ingredients and additives, including xanthan gum, starches, oils and shortenings, to restaurants and food manufacturers. In 2008, the FDA approved the Cargill-developed sweetener Truvia, a calorie-free additive derived from the herb stevia.
  
  

Südzucker

• Südzucker, whose name literally translates to "South Sugar," is the largest sugar producer in Europe. The German company runs 30 sugar factories and three refineries in Austria, Belgium, Czech Republic, France, Germany, Hungary, Moldova, Poland, Romania, Slovakia and Bosnia-Herzegovina. It sells not just crystallized sugar but liquid sugar, used mostly by beverage companies, and a form of sugar paste that is used as feed for bees and other livestock. Südzucker is a public company, and sugar beet farmers own 55 percent of its stock.
  
  

Tate & Lyle

• Tate & Lyle is a United Kingdom-based manufacturer of sugars and industrial ingredients. Its industrial ingredient arms, one based in Europe and one in the United States, process corn into starches, fibers, ethanol, animal feed and sweeteners. Its sucralose branch produces Splenda, formerly in Alabama but now, due to lower costs, in Singapore.
  
  Tate & Lyle's sugar sector is its most iconic. The company imports raw sugar from Africa, the Caribbean, and the Pacific islands, and converts it to pure sugar at facilities in Europe. In July 2010, Tate & Lyle agreed to sell its sugar arm to American Sugar Refining for the equivalent of about $334 million.
  
  Tate & Lyle has a close relationship with the British food approval agency. In 2006, a former Tate & Lyle CEO was appointed head of the U.K.'s Food and Drink Federation.