PureCircle (PURE) revealed its intention to move from the junior market of the London Stock Exchange to the main market as the ongoing war on sugar helped fuel a rise in sales at the stevia producer.

Revenues in the year ended 30 June increased 26% to $127.4m (£82.1m) in the year ended 30 June as volumes increased 33%. The rise was driven by an accelerating market adoption of stevia across all the group’s geographic regions.

The figure would have been up more than 30% if not for exchange rate headwinds, with sales hit by the weakening of the Mexican peso and the euro against the US dollar. EBITDA also nudged upwards by 2% to $23.1m.

PureCircle worked with Coca-Cola during the year to roll out its reduced calorie Coke Life variant and with Pepsi on the drinks giant’s True and Next products. There were more than 6,500 products launched using stevia in the 2014 calendar year, an increase of more than 1,500 compared with 2013 [Mintel].

“FY15 has again seen strong evidence of stevia becoming established as a sustainable mainstream ingredient of choice for the world’s leading food and beverage brands,” chairman Paul Selway-Swift said.

“The heightened pressures to moderate calorific content in F&B products and the truly global range of categories and regions using stevia suggest adoption will continue to grow.”

He added that sustainable mainstream usage of PureCircle stevia would continue to lead to increased sales and future profitability. The company has applied to move its listing on the London Stock Exchange from AIM to the main market in anticipation of future growth.

“With increased evidence in our markets of the large, long-term potential for stevia, the directors believe that, after seven successful years on the AIM market, the group has now reached a size and stage of maturity at which the main market will provide a more appropriate platform for the next phases in the group’s long-term growth plans,” Selway-Swift said.

“The directors believe that the proposed move to the main market will further raise the group’s investor profile and provide PureCircle with access to a broader spectrum of investors leading to improved liquidity in its ordinary shares.”

The move to the main market will not involve the issuance of new shares, or any fundraising. It plans to introduce its ordinary shares to the official list and cancel trading of its ordinary shares on AIM before the end of the year.

CFO William Mitchell also announced he was retiring from the business but would stay in his position until a successor was appointed.

Shares in PureCircle have risen 4.2% today to 409p, but are down 20% since the start of the year.

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