Arable Crops
Sugar - UK Industry
All home-grown sugar beet is processed and marketed by British Sugar plc, which is wholly owned by Associated British Foods. British Sugar have roughly 60% of the UK domestic market, and sell throughout the UK. They hold the entire UK beet sugar quota and have done since the UK joined the EEC.
UK sugar beet is grown mainly in East Anglia and the West Midlands. The crop is sown in March/April and harvested from September to December. There are 7,200 growers in the UK, growing 9 million tonnes of beet on 150,000 hectares of land. The National Farmers' Union represents all UK sugar beet growers. The beet produces 1.5 million tonnes of sugar (average yield 17%) and 750,000 tonnes of animal feed. More than 75% of sugar beet is water. Sugar beet is processed from September to February at six British Sugar factories. The extracted sugar juice is crystallised into granulated sugar or stored as 'thick juice' for processing at a later date.
Tate & Lyle were formed in 1921 by the merging of Henry Tate and Abram Lyle's refining companies. The Thames (Silvertown) refinery is now the only sugar refinery in the UK. It refines the largest amount of cane sugar in the world, processing over 1 million tonnes of raw cane sugar annually at up to 160 tonnes per hour. Raw cane sugar is supplied to the refinery as a mixture of sucrose and various chemical and physical impurities (bacteria, soil, grit, etc). The refining process is designed to separate out the pure, natural, sucrose from the impurities.
When the UK joined the EU it secured an agreement allowing the continued importation of raw cane sugar from traditional suppliers in developing ACP Commonwealth countries. The agreement allows 1.3 million tonnes of sugar (of which 90% goes to Tate & Lyle for refining) to be imported into the EU each year at guaranteed minimum prices and free of any EU levy. Tate & Lyle supply roughly 40% of the UK domestic market and are major exporters of white sugar.
There are about a dozen UK sugar traders, dealing with the import and export of sugar. For information contact the Sugar Traders Association of the UK.
Page last modified:
26 January 2005
Page published: 26 January 2005