
A beet sugar factory or sugar factory, is a type of
sugar production facility that produces sugar from
sugar beets
Sugar is the generic name for sweet-tasting, soluble carbohydrates, many of which are used in food. Simple sugars, also called monosaccharides, include glucose, fructose, and galactose. Compound sugars, also called disaccharides or double s ...
. Nowadays most sugar factories also act as a
sugar refinery
A sugar refinery is a refinery which processes raw sugar from cane or beets into white refined sugar.
Many cane sugar mills produce raw sugar, which is sugar that still contains molasses, giving it more colour (and impurities) than the ...
. The first beet sugar factory was made in the 1802.
Sugar mill, factory and refinery
Beet sugar factories can differ in the extent of the processing:
*Most process sugar beet to
white sugar
White sugar, also called table sugar, granulated sugar, or regular sugar, is a commonly used type of sugar, made either of beet sugar or cane sugar, which has undergone a refining process.
Description
The refining process completely remove ...
(sucrose or "table sugar").
*Some process beet only as far as an intermediate stage (an unrefined 'raw' sugar or concentrated sugar solution) to be refined elsewhere.
*A few process beet and also process raw sugar from cane in their refining section.
The terms sugar mill and sugar refinery were older than the term sugar factory. In the 18th century, the only practical way to produce (raw) sugar was to extract it from the
sugar cane
Sugarcane or sugar cane is a species of (often hybrid) tall, perennial grass (in the genus '' Saccharum'', tribe Andropogoneae) that is used for sugar production. The plants are 2–6 m (6–20 ft) tall with stout, jointed, fibrous stal ...
. The extraction was done with a machine called the
sugar mill
A sugar cane mill is a factory that processes sugar cane to produce raw or white sugar.
The term is also used to refer to the equipment that crushes the sticks of sugar cane to extract the juice.
Processing
There are a number of steps in pr ...
, which pressed the juice out the sugar cane. Later, the term sugar mill was also applied to the whole facility that produced raw sugar from the sugar cane. Most of the raw sugar was transported to
sugar refineries
A sugar refinery is a refinery which processes raw sugar from cane or beets into white refined sugar.
Many cane sugar mills produce raw sugar, which is sugar that still contains molasses, giving it more colour (and impurities) than the white ...
, which converted it to a white sugar for consumers and other customers. This use of the terms mill and refinery was still very clear in the United States, for example.
When the first facilities to produce sugar from sugar beets were built, these facilities were mostly called manufactories or just factories, simply because they were buildings were something was manufactured. These first sugar factories were modest affairs driven by animals, wind- or water power. Like the sugar mills, sugar factories sold most of their raw sugar to sugar refineries. In time, most beet sugar factories began to refine their own production, but this did not lead to them being called refineries. In 2005, all sugar factories in the United States produced only refined sugar, but this was not universal practice.
In the tropics, the introduction of the
steam engine
A steam engine is a heat engine that performs mechanical work using steam as its working fluid. The steam engine uses the force produced by steam pressure to push a piston back and forth inside a cylinder. This pushing force can be ...
put an end to the clear definitions of mill, factory and refinery. The creation of large separate steam-powered facilities to produce raw sugar led to the separation of the manufacturing of raw sugar from the occupations of the planter. These buildings were also called sugar factories. Nowadays, the distinction between a
sugar mill
A sugar cane mill is a factory that processes sugar cane to produce raw or white sugar.
The term is also used to refer to the equipment that crushes the sticks of sugar cane to extract the juice.
Processing
There are a number of steps in pr ...
and a (cane) sugar factory is in whether it refines the raw sugar that it produces or sells it. This explains why in India
EID Parry
East India Distilleries (EID) Parry Limited is an Indian public company headquartered in Chennai, Tamil Nadu that has been in business for more than 225 years. It has many firsts to its credit, including the manufacturing of fertilizers ( ...
refers to sugar factories.
It's important to note that the distinction between a sugar mill and a (cane) sugar factory lies in whether it refines the raw sugar it produces or sells. The processing steps involve the purification of sugary liquid extracted from beets, including carbonatation and crystallization, which are integral to sugar refining processes.
Sugar beet processing
In the 1960s, beet sugar processing was described as consisting of eight steps, but these can be further divided into smaller steps. Transport could be considered the first step although it was not considered a direct part of production. However, transport cost was very important for the scale at which processing could take place. Storage was an important separate step as well. Purification of the sugary liquid extracted from thebeet, including
carbonatation
Carbonatation is a chemical reaction in which calcium hydroxide reacts with carbon dioxide and forms insoluble calcium carbonate:
:Ca(OH)2CO2->CaCO3H_2O
The process of forming a carbonate is sometimes referred to as "carbonation", although th ...
and
crystallization
Crystallization is the process by which solid forms, where the atoms or molecules are highly organized into a structure known as a crystal. Some ways by which crystals form are precipitating from a solution, freezing, or more rarely de ...
, are not specific to sugar beet processing, and similar steps are used in production of sugar from sugar cane. Therefore, these were primary part of the
Sugar refining
Sugar is the generic name for sweet-tasting, soluble carbohydrates, many of which are used in food. Simple sugars, also called monosaccharides, include glucose, fructose, and galactose. Compound sugars, also called disaccharides or double s ...
process.
Transport

After they are harvested, beet are transported to a factory. In the UK, beets are transported by a hauler, or by a tractor and a trailer by local farmers. Railways and boats are no longer used. In Ireland some beets were carried by rail, until the complete shutdown of
Irish Sugar beet production in 2006. The Netherlands originally relied on boats, and by 2021 this way of transport made a comeback.
A mode of transport that has almost disappeared is the transport of raw juice by pipeline. The concept is that one or more
râperie
A râperie is a small factory depending on a central sugar factory. In a râperie sugar beet are grated and the juice is extracted before it is transported to a central sugar factory. By 2023 the Râperie de Longchamps, Éghezée, Longchamps connec ...
s first extract the raw juice from the sugar beet. The juice is then transported by pipeline to a central sugar factory. The Râperie de Longchamps in Belgium is the last remaining râperie in Europe.
Reception
On arrival at the factory, each load is weighed and sampled at the tarehouse. The beet sample is checked for:
* soil tare – the amount of soil and other detritus from harvesting that is included in the load.
* crown tare – the amount of beet that forms the crown of the root. This has a lower sugar content than the rest of the root and has less value to the operator
* sugar content (
"pol") – a measurement of the amount of sucrose in the crop
* nitrogen content – for recommending future fertilizer use to the farmer
From these elements, the actual sugar content of the load is calculated and the grower's payment determined.
Storage
The load is then tipped onto the reception area, typically a flat concrete pad. From there, the beet are moved into large heaps. When it is time to process them, the beet are moved into a central channel or gulley, and are washed towards the processing plant.
Washing and scrubbing
The next step of the actual production process is washing and scrubbing. This is done by moving the beet around in washing and scrubbing tanks not unlike a washing machine. However, the actual washing is caused by the friction of the sugar beets against each other. This removes sand and stones and other objects.
Slicing
The cleaned beets are then mechanically sliced into fine "v" cross-section strips, called cossettes. The V-shape maximises the area of the slice while maintaining some rigidity to the cossette so it is not completely broken up in the diffuser.
Diffusion
The cossettes are then passed to a machine called a diffuser. Here hot water permeates them to extract the sugar content into a water solution, a process known as
leaching
Leaching is the loss or extraction of certain materials from a carrier into a liquid (usually, but not always a solvent). and may refer to:
*Leaching (agriculture), the loss of water-soluble plant nutrients from the soil; or applying a small amoun ...
. The diffusion process ends with two products: raw juice and beet pulp.
Diffusers are long vessels of many metres in which the beet slices go in one direction while the hot water goes in the opposite direction ("counter current"). The movement may either be caused by a rotating screw moving the cossettes or the whole unit rotating in which case the water and cossettes move through internal chambers of the drum. The three common designs of diffuser are the horizontal rotating "RT" (named after
Raffinerie Tirlemontoise
The Sugar refinery of Tienen ( nl, Tiense Suikerraffinaderij; french: Raffinerie Tirlemontoise), a subsidiary of ''Raffinerie Tirlemontoise Group'' (RT Group), is a Belgian sugar producing company. The company whose headquarters is located in Tie ...
the original manufacturer), inclined screw "DDS" (from the Danish company ''
De Danske Sukkerfabrikker
() was a Danish sugar manufacturing company established in 1872 in Copenhagen, Denmark. It played a central role in the development of a thriving Danish sugar industry based on sugar beets from Lolland-Falster, Møn and Funen. The company merged ...
'' ), or vertical screw "Tower". Modern tower extraction plants have a processing capacity of up to per day. A less-common design uses a moving belt that carries the cossettes over a series of tanks. Water is pumped onto the top of the belt and passes through the cossettes into the tank below which it pumped over the next section. In all cases, the flow rates of cossettes and water are in the ratio one to two. Typically, cossettes take about 90 minutes to pass through the diffuser, the water only 45 minutes. These
countercurrent exchange
Countercurrent exchange is a mechanism occurring in nature and mimicked in industry and engineering, in which there is a crossover of some property, usually heat or some chemical, between two flowing bodies flowing in opposite directions to each ...
methods extract more sugar from the cossettes using less water than if they merely sat in a hot water tank. The liquid exiting the diffuser is called "raw juice". The colour of raw juice varies from black to a dark red depending on the amount of oxidation, which is itself dependent on diffuser design.
The used cossettes, now called
beet pulp
Beet pulp is a byproduct from the processing of sugar beet which is used as fodder for horses and other livestock. Beet pulp is the fibrous material left over after the sugar is extracted from sugar beets. It is supplied either as dried flakes or ...
, exit the diffuser at about 95% moisture, but low sucrose content. Using
screw press
A screw press is a type of machine press in which the ram is driven up and down by a screw. The screw shaft can be driven by a handle or a wheel. It works by using a coarse screw to convert the rotation of the handle or drive-wheel into a small d ...
es, the wet pulp is then pressed down to 75% moisture. This recovers additional sucrose in the liquid pressed out of the pulp, and reduces the energy needed to dry the pulp. The liquid pressed out of the pulp is combined with the raw juice, or more often introduced into the diffuser at the appropriate point in the countercurrent process. The final byproduct,
vinasse Vinasse is a byproduct of the sugar or ethanol industry. Sugarcane or sugar beet is processed to produce crystalline sugar, pulp and molasses. The latter are further processed by fermentation to ethanol, ascorbic acid or other products. Juice sugarc ...
, is used as fertilizer or growth substrate for yeast cultures.
During diffusion, a portion of the sucrose breaks down into
invert sugar
Inverted sugar syrup, also called invert syrup, invert sugar, simple syrup, sugar syrup, sugar water, bar syrup, syrup USP, or sucrose inversion, is a syrup mixture of the monosaccharides glucose and fructose, that is made by hydrolytic sa ...
s. These can undergo further breakdown into acids. These breakdown products are not only losses of sucrose, but also have knock-on effects reducing the final output of processed sugar from the factory. To limit (thermophilic) bacterial action, the feed water may be dosed with
formaldehyde
Formaldehyde ( , ) ( systematic name methanal) is a naturally occurring organic compound with the formula and structure . The pure compound is a pungent, colourless gas that polymerises spontaneously into paraformaldehyde (refer to section ...
and control of the feed water
pH is also practiced. Attempts at operating diffusion under alkaline conditions have been made, but the process has proven problematic. The improved sucrose extraction in the diffuser is offset by processing problems in the next stages.

The products of the diffusion step are beet pulp and raw juice. The beet pulp is generally used as livestock feed. It can be sold directly as "wet pulp" but wet pulp has high moisture and soon develops mould. Dried pulp has higher value whether sold as shreds or pelleted. Pulp can also be mixed with molasses during the drying process for higher nutrient content. The raw juice moves to the next processing stages for removal of impurities and conversion to solid sugar.
Sugar refining

The production of white sugar from the beet extract is similar in some parts to the production of sugar from raw sugar derived from sugar cane but adapted to the particular circumstances of beet.
Purification
The raw juice first undergoes purification to remove impurities which affect white sugar recovery quantity and quality. The steps commonly used for beet are
carbonatation
Carbonatation is a chemical reaction in which calcium hydroxide reacts with carbon dioxide and forms insoluble calcium carbonate:
:Ca(OH)2CO2->CaCO3H_2O
The process of forming a carbonate is sometimes referred to as "carbonation", although th ...
and sulphonation. Carbonatation uses
milk of lime
Limewater is the common name for a saturated aqueous solution of calcium hydroxide. Calcium hydroxide, Ca(OH)2, is sparsely soluble at room temperature in water (1.5 g/L at 25 °C). "Pure" (i.e. less than or fully saturated) limewater i ...
, an alkaline liquid produced from calcium hydroxide, together with carbon dioxide (the exhaust from the lime kiln that produces the lime) to
precipitate
In an aqueous solution, precipitation is the process of transforming a dissolved substance into an insoluble solid from a super-saturated solution. The solid formed is called the precipitate. In case of an inorganic chemical reaction leading ...
impurities into a form that can be removed from the raw juice.
In the carbonation step, proteins are coagulated, and the calcium carbonate forms solid particles which incorporate the coagulated materials, pieces of vegetable matter, and absorb some soluble impurities. The high alkalinity destroys monosaccharides and other compounds which are thermally unstable and would breakdown in subsequent processing steps.
The precipitate is removed by gravitation and filtration to leave a clear, lighter coloured alkaline (ph 8.4 to 9.4) liquid known as thin juice. Flocculants may be used in the process to speed separation of precipitate.
Thin juice may then undergo a sulphonation step, in which
sulfur dioxide
Sulfur dioxide ( IUPAC-recommended spelling) or sulphur dioxide (traditional Commonwealth English) is the chemical compound with the formula . It is a toxic gas responsible for the odor of burnt matches. It is released naturally by volcanic ...
is used to bleach this juice.
The addition of milk of lime and carbon dioxide may be in sequential steps (DDS or RT) with pre-liming and primary and secondary carbonatation steps separated by filtration of precipitates or in a process where juice is continuous cycling through primary and secondary steps to build particle size with a
clarifier
Clarifiers are settling tanks built with mechanical means for continuous removal of solids being deposited by sedimentation. A clarifier is generally used to remove solid particulates or suspended solids from liquid for clarification and/or thi ...
and rotary filters to remove precipitate (
Dorr Dorr may refer to:
* Dorr (surname)
* Dorr, Iran, a village in Isfahan Province, Iran
* Dorr Township, McHenry County, Illinois
* Dorr Township, Michigan
** Dorr, Michigan
See also
* Door (disambiguation)
* Dorr Rebellion
* Wilmer Cutler Picker ...
Oliver).
Evaporation
The thin juice is concentrated by multi-effect evaporation to make a "thick juice", roughly 60% sucrose by weight. For more efficient scaling of the refining equipment to the beet processing stage, raw juice at around 70% dry solids can be stored and refined after the beet slicing campaign.
Crystallization
In a beet sugar refinery the only outputs are white crystalline sugar and molasses; intermediate products in the process are recycled.
The crystallization process starts by loading vacuum boiling pans ("white pans") with standard liquor (a mixture of raw juice and low grade sugar). The liquor is heated under reduced pressure to supersaturation. Seed crystals are added to the pan to act as the basis for the formation of crystals. The sucrose in the liquor crystallises on the seed; when the crystals in the pan have reached the desired size (around 0.5 mm) the contents of the pan are emptied via a receiver tank into centrifuges to separate crystals from the remaining sugar liquor. The crystals are given a brief wash in the centrifuge. The remaining liquor ("high green", about 50% of the pan's contents) which still contains significant amounts of sugar is then boiled again (in "raw pans") to produce more crystals but of a lower quality with more impurities and colour. The sugar from this boiling is separated in centrifuges and remelted to feed the first stage, the residual liquor ("low green") may be boiled again (in "after product" (AP) pans) to separate the last of the recoverable crystal sugar. The remaining liquor at this stage is known as beet molasses. The AP sugar may be affinated with liquor to wash the crystals before remelting.
The white sugar from the pans is dried and cooled in granulators and sent to storage. From storage the sugar is graded to give consistent particle size distribution for sale. Sugar crystals outside the specification are returned to the pans for reprocessing. Further grades of sugar e.g.
icing sugar/powdered sugar are produced by milling.
Molasses sugar recovery
The molasses from sugar beet still contain a significant amount of sugar - typically around 50% sucrose by weight. The remainder of molasses is fructose and glucose produced as breakdown products of sucrose during processing and soluble anions and cations from the beet such as potassium, sodium, chlorides, and nitrogen compounds.
The Steffen Process was used to recover sucrose from molasses, so advanced beet sugar factories had a "Steffen house" next to the plant. Sucrose was precipitated as a calcium saccharate and filtered off. During World War I, when imported
potash
Potash () includes various mined and manufactured salts that contain potassium in water- soluble form. from European sources was unavailable in the United States, "Steffen's wastewater" provided a good source, leading to a profitable income stream for a factory. The need disappeared immediately after the war.
In the 1950s,
industrial fermentation
Industrial fermentation is the intentional use of fermentation in manufacturing products useful to humans. In addition to the mass production of fermented foods and drinks, industrial fermentation has widespread applications in chemical indus ...
advanced to produce
monosodium glutamate
Monosodium glutamate (MSG), also known as sodium glutamate, is the sodium salt of glutamic acid. MSG is found naturally in some foods including tomatoes and cheese in this glutamic acid form. MSG is used in cooking as a flavor enhancer with ...
(MSG), previously produced in Japan by the expensive
racemization In chemistry, racemization is a conversion, by heat or by chemical reaction, of an optically active compound into a racemic (optically inactive) form. This creates a 1:1 molar ratio of enantiomers and is referred too as a racemic mixture (i.e. con ...
process. Beet sugar molasses, with a ''
Corynebacterium
''Corynebacterium'' () is a genus of Gram-positive bacteria and most are aerobic. They are bacilli (rod-shaped), and in some phases of life they are, more specifically, club-shaped, which inspired the genus name ('' coryneform'' means "club- ...
'' (especially ''
Corynebacterium glutamicum
''Corynebacterium glutamicum'' is a Gram-positive, rod-shaped bacterium that is used industrially for large-scale production of amino acids. While originally identified in a screen for organisms secreting L-glutamate, mutants of ''C. glutamicum ...
'') and combined with
penicillin
Penicillins (P, PCN or PEN) are a group of β-lactam antibiotics originally obtained from ''Penicillium'' moulds, principally '' P. chrysogenum'' and '' P. rubens''. Most penicillins in clinical use are synthesised by P. chrysogenum using ...
or a
surfactant
Surfactants are chemical compounds that decrease the surface tension between two liquids, between a gas and a liquid, or interfacial tension between a liquid and a solid. Surfactants may act as detergents, wetting agents, emulsifiers, fo ...
to block
biotin, produced MSG as a result, which effectively produced large profits from what was formerly waste.
Byproducts
Carbonation-lime residue
During the refining process, raw beet sugar requires much more lime for purification. Carbonation-lime residue contains about 80%
Calcium carbonate and is therefore used to improve agricultural land.
Molasses
The beet-sugar molasses that remain from the crystallization phase are the most valuable byproduct. It can be sold on the yeast fermentation, pharmaceutical, and animal food markets. The molasses can be added to the beet pulp before drying to give a higher value product.
When the factory has a Molasses Desugaring by chromatography (MDC) process, processing leads to two more by-products:
* concentrated molasses solids (CMS), which contains mainly minerals and is usually sold to the animal feed industry.
*
Betaine
A betaine () in chemistry is any neutral chemical compound with a positively charged cationic functional group, such as a quaternary ammonium or phosphonium cation (generally: onium ions) that bears no hydrogen atom and with a negatively char ...
chiefly through
chromatographic
In chemical analysis, chromatography is a laboratory technique for the separation of a mixture into its components. The mixture is dissolved in a fluid solvent (gas or liquid) called the ''mobile phase'', which carries it through a system (a ...
separation, using techniques such as the "simulated moving bed".
Waste products
The processing of beet produces large amounts of water; beet as delivered to the factory has high water content. Water has to be held in lagoons before processing and release.
The soil and gravel washed from beet at reception may not be permitted to be returned to agricultural land but can be sold on as aggregate and topsoil for landscaping.
History of the beet sugar industry
First sugar factories
Under the patronage of
Frederick William III of Prussia
Frederick William III (german: Friedrich Wilhelm III.; 3 August 1770 – 7 June 1840) was King of Prussia from 16 November 1797 until his death in 1840. He was concurrently Elector of Brandenburg in the Holy Roman Empire until 6 August 1806, wh ...
,
Franz Karl Achard
Franz Karl Achard (28 April 1753 – 20 April 1821) was a German (Prussian) chemist, geoscientist, physicist, and biologist. His principal discovery was the production of sugar from sugar beets.
Life and work
Achard was born in Berlin, the s ...
opened the world's first beet sugar factory in 1801, at
Kunern
Konary Castle or Knight's Castle Kunern is a castle in the village Konary (german: Kunern), Lower Silesia, Poland, located 55 km south of the city of Wrocław.Silesia
Silesia (, also , ) is a historical region of Central Europe that lies mostly within Poland, with small parts in the Czech Republic and Germany. Its area is approximately , and the population is estimated at around 8,000,000. Silesia is spli ...
(now Konary, Poland). The idea to produce sugar from beet was soon introduced to France, where
Napoleon opened schools specifically for studying the plant. He also ordered that be devoted to growing sugar beet. This was in response to British naval blockades of France during the
Napoleonic Wars
The Napoleonic Wars (1803–1815) were a series of major global conflicts pitting the French Empire and its allies, led by Napoleon I, against a fluctuating array of European states formed into various coalitions. It produced a period of Fren ...
(and the reciprocal
Continental System
The Continental Blockade (), or Continental System, was a large-scale embargo against British trade by Napoleon Bonaparte against the British Empire from 21 November 1806 until 11 April 1814, during the Napoleonic Wars. Napoleon issued the Berli ...
imposed by
Napoleon), which limited cane sugar imports to Europe and ultimately stimulated the rapid growth of a European sugar beet industry.
By 1840, about 5% of the world's sugar was derived from sugar beets, and by 1880, this number had risen more than tenfold to over 50%. The sugar beet was introduced to North America after 1830, with the first commercial production starting in 1879 at a farm in
Alvarado, California
Alvarado (formerly, New Haven) is a former settlement in and former county seat of Alameda County, California, now part of Union City. It was located north-northwest of downtown Newark.
In 1851, Henry C. Smith founded the town of New Haven, na ...
. The sugar beet was also introduced to
Chile
Chile, officially the Republic of Chile, is a country in the western part of South America. It is the southernmost country in the world, and the closest to Antarctica, occupying a long and narrow strip of land between the Andes to the eas ...
by German settlers around 1850.
France

The work of Achard soon attracted the attention of Napoleon, who appointed a commission of scientists to go to Silesia to investigate Achard's factory. Upon their return, two small factories were constructed near Paris. Although these factories were not altogether a success, the results attained greatly interested Napoleon. Thus, when two events, the blockade of Europe by the British
Royal Navy
The Royal Navy (RN) is the United Kingdom's naval warfare force. Although warships were used by Kingdom of England, English and Kingdom of Scotland, Scottish kings from the early medieval period, the first major maritime engagements were foug ...
and the
Haitian Revolution
The Haitian Revolution (french: révolution haïtienne ; ht, revolisyon ayisyen) was a successful insurrection by self-liberated slaves against French colonial rule in Saint-Domingue, now the sovereign state of Haiti. The revolt began on 22 ...
, made the importation of cane sugar untenable, Napoleon seized the opportunity offered by beet sugar to address the shortage. In 1811, Napoleon issued a decree appropriating one million
franc
The franc is any of various units of currency. One franc is typically divided into 100 centimes. The name is said to derive from the Latin inscription ''francorum rex'' (King of the Franks) used on early French coins and until the 18th centur ...
s for the establishment of sugar schools, and compelling the farmers to plant a large acreage to sugar beets the following year. He also prohibited the further importation of sugar from the Caribbean effective in 1813.
The number of mills increased considerably during the 1820s and 1830s, reaching a peak of 543 in 1837. The number was down to 382 in 1842, producing about 22.5 million kg of sugar during that year.
[L'Illustration Journal Universel, 13 May 1843.]
Western Europe
As a result of the French advances in sugar beet production and processing made during the Napoleonic Wars, the beet sugar industry in Europe developed rapidly. A new tax levied in Germany in 1810 prompted the experimentation to increase the sugar content of the beet. This was because the tax assessed the value of the sugar beet crop based on the unprocessed weight of the sugar beet rather than the refined sugar produced from them. By 1812, Frenchman
Jean-Baptiste Quéruel
Jean-Baptiste Quéruel (23 November 1779 – 20 June 1845) was the inventor of the method for industrial production of sugar from Sugar beet, beet.
Quéruel was born on 23 November 1779 in Normandy at the hamlet of La Perrochère in Saint-Quenti ...
, working for the industrialist
Benjamin Delessert
Jules Paul Benjamin Delessert (14 February 1773 – 1 March 1847) was a French banker and naturalist. He was an honorary member of the Académie des Sciences and many species were named from his natural history collections.
Biography
He was bo ...
, devised a process of sugar extraction suitable for industrial application. By 1837, France had become the largest sugar beet producer in the world, a position it continued to hold in the world even into 2010. By 1837, 542 factories in France were producing 35,000 tonnes of sugar. However, by 1880, Germany became the largest producer of sugar from sugar beet in the world, since the German factories processed most of the sugar beets grown in eastern France.
By the 1850s, sugar beet production had reached Russia and Ukraine. This was made possible by the protection of the sugar beet industry by bounties, or subsidies, paid to beet sugar producers upon the export of their sugar by their respective governments. The protection provided to the sugar beet industry by these bounties caused drastic damage to the cane sugar industry and their grip on the British sugar market. The result was a reduction in the production of cane sugar, molasses and rum until 1915. During World War I, the widespread conflict destroyed large tracts of land that had served sugar beet producers and repurposed much of the remaining sugar beet land for grain production. This resulted in a shortage that revived the shrinking cane sugar industry.
The sugar industry in the EU came under bureaucratic pressure in 2006 and ultimately resulted in the loss of 20,000 jobs, although many factories, as detailed in a later 2010 EU audit, were found to have been mistakenly shut down, as they were profitable without government intervention. In 2021/2022 the European Union was a small net importer of sugar.
United States
In the 1820s, the
abolitionists
Abolitionism, or the abolitionist movement, is the movement to end slavery. In Western Europe and the Americas, abolitionism was a historic movement that sought to end the Atlantic slave trade and liberate the enslaved people.
The British ...
in New England wanted to abolish slavery by boycotting the products that were made by slaves. They started to import sugar from Asia (called "free sugar" because it was grown without slavery), but this sugar tasted "awful". In order to overcome the problems of the "free sugar" from Asia, the "Beet Sugar Society of Philadelphia" was founded in 1836. It promoted cottage-produced beet sugar as an alternative to the slave-produced cane sugar from the
West Indies
The West Indies is a subregion of North America, surrounded by the North Atlantic Ocean and the Caribbean Sea that includes 13 independent island countries and 18 dependencies and other territories in three major archipelagos: the Great ...
. All pre-1870 movement failed, primarily because it approached the subject with naïve optimism and without sufficient capital. An attempt in
Utah
Utah ( , ) is a state in the Mountain West subregion of the Western United States. Utah is a landlocked U.S. state bordered to its east by Colorado, to its northeast by Wyoming, to its north by Idaho, to its south by Arizona, and to its ...
by the
LDS Church
The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, informally known as the LDS Church or Mormon Church, is a nontrinitarian Christian church that considers itself to be the restoration of the original church founded by Jesus Christ. The ...
-owned
Deseret Manufacturing Company
The Deseret Manufacturing Company () was an unsuccessful venture by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in the 1850s to process sugar beets into refined sugar. A test factory was established in an area that is now known as Sugar House ...
in the 1850s was carefully planned and funded, but failed due to saline soil conditions.
After many failures,
E. H. Dyer acquired a defunct sugar factory in Alvarado, California (now
Union City) in 1879, and succeeded in making sugar in commercially viable amounts. It was soon joined by the Western Beet Sugar Company in
Watsonville
Watsonville is a city in Santa Cruz County, California, located in the Monterey Bay Area of the Central Coast of California. The population was 52,590 according to the 2020 census. Predominantly Latino and Democratic, Watsonville is a self-d ...
The Oxnard brothers brought sugar beet cultivation to the plains, when they opened a factory in
Grand Island, Nebraska
Grand Island is a city in and the county seat of Hall County, Nebraska, United States. The population was 53,131 at the 2020 census.
Grand Island is the principal city of the Grand Island metropolitan area, which consists of Hall, Merrick, ...
. In Utah,
Arthur Stayner
Arthur Stayner (29 March 1835 – 4 September 1899) was an English horticulturist who emigrated to the United States and became important in the founding of the sugar beet industry in Utah.
Beet sugar
The first entrepreneurs to try to make sugar ...
and others were able to convince LDS Church leaders to support a second attempt. It led to the
Utah-Idaho Sugar Company
The Utah-Idaho Sugar Company was a large sugar beet processing company based in Utah. It was owned and controlled by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS Church) and its leaders. It was notable for developing a valuable cash crop a ...
, which had Dyer built its factory in
Lehi, Utah
Lehi ( ) is a city in Utah County, Utah, United States. It is named after Lehi, a prophet in the Book of Mormon. The population was 75,907 at the 2020 census, up from 47,407 in 2010. The rapid growth in Lehi is due, in part, to the rapid develo ...
in 1890.
Capital investment in factories demanded an adequate supply of sugar beets. In central Colorado and western Nebraska, this was provided substantially by
Germans from Russia
The German minority population in Russia, Ukraine, and the Soviet Union stemmed from several sources and arrived in several waves. Since the second half of the 19th century, as a consequence of the Russification policies and compulsory military ...
who were already expert at sugar beet farming when they immigrated in large numbers circa 1890–1905. The United States now also began to catch up with Europe in research. The work of
Rachel Lloyd
Rachel Elizabeth Lloyd (born 1975) is a British anti-trafficking advocate, author and the founder of Girls Educational and Mentoring Services. She is known for her work on the issue of commercial sexual exploitation and domestic trafficking ...
at the University of Nebraska in the late 1880s resulted in a large production increase in the state of Nebraska.
By 1914, the sugar beet industry in the US matched the production of its European counterparts. The largest producers of beet sugar in the US were California, Utah, and Nebraska until the outbreak of World War II. In California,
Japanese Americans
are Americans of Japanese ancestry. Japanese Americans were among the three largest Asian American ethnic communities during the 20th century; but, according to the 2000 census, they have declined in number to constitute the sixth largest Asi ...
were an important constituent in farming and production. When they were interned during World War II, California's beet sugar production stalled, and was largely shifted to inland states such as Idaho, Montana, North Dakota, and Utah. In many of the regions where new sugar beet farms were started during the war, farmers were unfamiliar with beet sugar cultivation, so they hired Japanese-American workers from
internment camps
Internment is the imprisonment of people, commonly in large groups, without charges or intent to file charges. The term is especially used for the confinement "of enemy citizens in wartime or of terrorism suspects". Thus, while it can simpl ...
who were familiar with sugar beet production to work on the farms.
In 1935, the inputs required to process of beets to sugar was outlined as follows:
* limestone
*
coke
Coke usually refers to:
* Coca-Cola, a brand of soft drink
**The Coca-Cola Company
* Slang term for cocaine, a psychoactive substance and illicit drug
Substances Soft drinks
* Cola, any soft drink similar to Coca-Cola
* Generic name for a soft d ...
(to convert limestone to
quicklime
Calcium oxide (CaO), commonly known as quicklime or burnt lime, is a widely used chemical compound. It is a white, caustic, alkaline, crystalline solid at room temperature. The broadly used term "'' lime''" connotes calcium-containing inorganic ...
)
* water
Sugar beets are grown in 11 states and represent 50-55% of the US domestic sugar production. Sugarcane accounts for about 45% of US domestic sugar production. In 1995 sugarcane was grown commercially in
Florida
Florida is a state located in the Southeastern region of the United States. Florida is bordered to the west by the Gulf of Mexico, to the northwest by Alabama, to the north by Georgia, to the east by the Bahamas and Atlantic Ocean, a ...
,
Hawaii
Hawaii ( ; haw, Hawaii or ) is a state in the Western United States, located in the Pacific Ocean about from the U.S. mainland. It is the only U.S. state outside North America, the only state that is an archipelago, and the only ...
,
Louisiana
Louisiana , group=pronunciation (French: ''La Louisiane'') is a U.S. state, state in the Deep South and South Central United States, South Central regions of the United States. It is the List of U.S. states and territories by area, 20th-smal ...
,
Texas
Texas (, ; Spanish language, Spanish: ''Texas'', ''Tejas'') is a state in the South Central United States, South Central region of the United States. At 268,596 square miles (695,662 km2), and with more than 29.1 million residents in 2 ...
, and
Puerto Rico
Puerto Rico (; abbreviated PR; tnq, Boriken, ''Borinquen''), officially the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico ( es, link=yes, Estado Libre Asociado de Puerto Rico, lit=Free Associated State of Puerto Rico), is a Caribbean island and Unincorporated ...
. In 2016 the last sugar plantation and mill of Hawaii closed down.
United Kingdom

Before World War I, the United Kingdom with its far-flung empire, simply imported raw sugar from the cheapest market. The first sugar beet processing factory became operational at
Lavenham
Lavenham is a village, civil parish and electoral ward in the Babergh district, in the county of Suffolk, England. It is noted for its Guildhall, Little Hall, 15th-century church, half-timbered medieval cottages and circular walks. In the medie ...
in
Suffolk
Suffolk () is a ceremonial county of England in East Anglia. It borders Norfolk to the north, Cambridgeshire to the west and Essex to the south; the North Sea lies to the east. The county town is Ipswich; other important towns include L ...
in 1869. It failed, probably because it lacked the government support that its counterparts on the continent received. By the end of the century sugar production had ceased and the factory was re-purposed as a store house for horse hair and matting. It was totally destroyed by fire in 1905 and today, no trace remains.
The Dutch built the first successful factory at
Cantley in Norfolk in 1912, and it was moderately successful since, because of its Dutch backing, it received Dutch bounties. Sugar beet seed from France was listed in the annual catalogues of
Gartons Agricultural Plant Breeders
Dr John Garton, of the firm of Garton Brothers of Newton-le-Willows in the United Kingdom was the Originator of Scientific Farm Plant Breeding. He is credited as the first scientist to show that the common grain crops and many other plants are ...
from that firm's inception in 1898 until the first of their own varieties was introduced in 1909.
When World War I created a shortage in sugar, it prompted the development of domestic sugar production. In 1915, the British Sugar Beet Society was formed to create an example of a domestic sugar beet industry for the purpose of obtaining government financing which was delivered by the British Sugar (Subsidy) Act 1925. The sugar beet industry in the United Kingdom was finally subsidized, providing stability to the domestic industry that had experienced volatile shifts in profits and losses in the years since 1915. In the 1920s 17 processing factories were built. The British Power Alcohol Association was founded in 1924 to promote the use of beet for fuel.
In 1936, the British sugar beet industry was nationalized in the form of the British Sugar Corporation; this later returned to private ownership becoming
British Sugar
British Sugar plc is a subsidiary of Associated British Foods and the sole British producer of sugar from sugar beet, as well as medicinal cannabis.
British Sugar processes all sugar beet grown in the United Kingdom, and produces about two-thi ...
the sole beet processor in the UK. Following concentration of processing at a few sites by 2009 there were four sugar factories in the United Kingdom (three in East Anglia and one in East Midlands). The Wissington factory is the largest in Europe by amount of sugar beet processed (3 million tonnes) a year.
Russia
References to the sugar manufacturing from beets in Russia date back to 1802.
Jacob Esipov built the first Russian commercial factory producing sugar from beets in the
Tula Oblast
Tula Oblast (russian: Ту́льская о́бласть, ''Tulskaya oblast'') is a federal subject (an oblast) of Russia. It is geographically in the European Russia region of the country and is part of the Central Federal District, coverin ...
. During the Soviet period, some particularly impressive advancements were made in seed development, of which the most useful was the development of frost-resistant sugar beet, further expanding the growing range of the sugar beet.
Australia and New Zealand
There were various attempts, after 1865, to farm sugar beets in the Australian colony, later state, of Victoria. An industry was established in the district around
Maffra
Maffra is a town in Victoria, Australia, east of Melbourne. It is in the Shire of Wellington local government area and it is the second most populous city of the Shire. It relies mainly on dairy farming and other agriculture, and is the ...
in 1896. It became unprofitable due to a drought in 1899 and the factory was taken over by the Victorian government. It was reopened in 1910 and the industry flourished during the inter-war years. Production peaked in 1939–1940. The Second World War affected the industry by taking away its labour force. After the war ended, local farmers preferred dairying to labour-intensive and less-profitable sugar beet production, and the factory closed in 1948. It was the only significant sugar beet factory in Australia. Australia continues to be a major sugar producer, but all production is from sugar cane grown in Queensland and northern New South Wales.
Sugar beet is widely grown in New Zealand as
cattle feed
There are different systems of feeding cattle in animal husbandry. For pastured animals, grass is usually the forage that composes the majority of their diet. Cattle reared in feedlots are fed hay supplemented with grain, soy and other ingredie ...
, and this practice has spread to some parts of Australia.
Notes
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{{cite book , year=1875 , title=Future Farming funding boost to Sugar Beet innovation in Norwich , url=https://www.jic.ac.uk/news/future-farming-funding-boost-to-sugar-beet-innovation-in-norwich/ , publisher=John Innes Centre , ref={{sfnref, ''John Innes Centre'', 15th February 2024
Beet sugar factory