Formerly | British Sugar Corporation Limited (1936–1982) [1] |
---|---|
Company type | Subsidiary |
Industry | Sugar beet processing |
Predecessor | Anglo-Scottish Beet Sugar Corporation |
Founded | 1936 |
Headquarters | , England, United Kingdom |
Number of locations | 5 |
Area served | United Kingdom |
Key people | Keith Packer (managing director) |
Products | Sugar Bioethanol Animal feed Topsoil Soil conditioners |
Revenue | £714.1 million (2021) [2] |
£59.8 million (2021) [2] | |
£35.3 million (2021) [2] | |
Number of employees | 1,400 (2021) [2] |
Parent | AB Sugar (Associated British Foods) |
Website | britishsugar |
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-thirds of the United Kingdom's quota of sugar, with the remainder produced by the brand Tate & Lyle, under licence to American Sugar Refining, and by imports. British Sugar and the growers fix a contract called the "Inter Professional Agreement" determining the price paid for beet grown and the allocation of growers' quotas. The National Farmers Union (NFU) is the negotiator for the growers.
The company was formed as the British Sugar Corporation in 1936, when the British parliament nationalised the entire sugar beet crop processing industry, under the banner of British Sugar Corporation. At this time, there were 13 separate companies with 18 factories across the country. In 1972, it began selling its sugar products under the name of Silver Spoon. [3]
In 1977, a rights issue decreased the government holding from 36% to 24%. In May 1982, the company name was shortened to British Sugar plc, and later that year it was taken over by Berisford International. [4]
After a crash in property values affected Berisford, it was sold to Associated British Foods (ABF) on 2 January 1991. [5]
In 2004 the company took over independent sugar producers Billingtons, which was founded by Edward Billington and Son, as a tea and coffee trading company, in 1858. [6]
The sugar refinery in Cupar, Fife, closed in 1971 ending the growth and processing of sugar beet in Scotland; in its heyday in the mid-1930s, 1,500 farmers supplied the Cupar factory. [7] In 1981, the Ely, Felsted, Nottingham and Selby factories closed after a reduction in the allowed sugar quota. This was followed by the closure of sites at Spalding in 1989, Peterborough and Brigg in 1991, King's Lynn in 1994, Bardney and Ipswich in 2001, Kidderminster in 2002, and Allscott and York in 2007. The site at Allscott, which opened in 1927, near Telford, Shropshire, was closed because it "lacked scale" to be run economically, while the site at York, North Yorkshire (opened 1926), was closed due to the poor crop yields in northern England. [8]
Of the 18 factories which were owned by the British Sugar Corporation, only four still process beet - Bury St Edmunds (Suffolk), Cantley (in Norfolk, the second and first successful British sugar factory in 1912), Newark-on-Trent (Nottinghamshire) and Wissington (western Norfolk and the largest in Europe). The Bury site is also a major packaging plant for Silver Spoon. [9]
The 12 sites already closed have been sold and decommissioned to various degrees – many large concrete silos (for storing the major product, white granulated sugar) still remain even where the sites have been closed, including those at the Kidderminster factory which was closed in 2002 and sold off in 2006. The concrete silos at the Ipswich site were demolished in 2018, 17 years after the site closed. Allscott has now been completely demolished. Spalding has been replaced by Spalding power station. [10] BP and DuPont are working with British Sugar to build a bioethanol plant at BP's Hull site, as described in an announcement made in June 2007. [11]
British Sugar is effectively the sole buyer of all of the sugar beet grown in Britain. This output comes from around 2,300 beet growers throughout Britain. [12] There is however a proposal to start growing sugar beet in Eastern Scotland again to produce bioethanol. [13] [14] British Sugar is a supplier of cannabis to GW Pharmaceuticals. [15]
The former managing director, Paul Kenward, is married to the Conservative MP and Health Minister Victoria Atkins. [16] He has since been promoted to the parent company (ABF Sugar) as the CEO there. [17]
A sugar beet is a plant whose root contains a high concentration of sucrose and which is grown commercially for sugar production. In plant breeding, it is known as the Altissima cultivar group of the common beet. Together with other beet cultivars, such as beetroot and chard, it belongs to the subspecies Beta vulgaris subsp. vulgaris but classified as var. saccharifera . Its closest wild relative is the sea beet.
Greencore Group plc is a food company in Ireland. It was established by the Irish government in 1991, when Irish Sugar was privatised, but today Greencore's products are mainly convenience foods, not only in Ireland but also in the United Kingdom. A major supplier to British and Irish supermarkets, Greencore is the largest sandwich manufacturer in the world. It is listed on the London Stock Exchange and is a constituent of the FTSE 250 Index.
Tate & Lyle PLC is a British-headquartered, global supplier of food and beverage products to food and industrial markets. It was originally a sugar refining business, but from the 1970s, it began to diversify, eventually divesting its sugar business in 2010. It specialises in turning raw materials such as corn and tapioca into ingredients that add taste, texture, and nutrients to food and beverages. It is listed on the London Stock Exchange and is a constituent of the FTSE 250 Index.
The Peterborough–Lincoln line is a railway line linking Peterborough and Lincoln Central, via Sleaford and Spalding. Between Lincoln and Spalding, the line follows the route of the former Great Northern and Great Eastern Joint Railway.
Enodis plc was a British multinational foodmaking equipment manufacturing company headquartered in London. A former FTSE 250 Index constituent, it was acquired by the American machinery manufacturer The Manitowoc Company in October 2008, with its activities subsequently being fully integrated into those of Manitowoc.
The Western Sugar Cooperative is a grower owned American agricultural cooperative originating from the Great Western Sugar Company in 1901.
Surfleet is a small village and civil parish in the South Holland district of Lincolnshire, England. It is situated on the B1356 road, 3 miles (4.8 km) north of Spalding, in the Lincolnshire fens.
Woodston is a largely residential and industrial area of the city of Peterborough, in the ceremonial county of Cambridgeshire, England. For electoral purposes, it forms part of Fletton ward in North West Cambridgeshire constituency. Oundle Road runs through most of Woodston into the Ortons.
The Amalgamated Sugar Company is an American sugar beet-refining company run on a cooperative basis. It was founded in 1897 in Ogden, Utah, and is now located in Boise, Idaho. The company markets its sugar under the White Satin brand.
Wissington in Norfolk is the site of British Sugar's largest sugar factory in the UK; it is also the largest in Europe. There has been a sugar factory there since 1925; however none of the rest of the village remains, other than the name. British Sugar has opened the UK's first bioethanol plant here.
The Agrana Group is a food company based in Vienna that produces sugar, starch, fruit preparation, juice concentrate and ethanol fuel. Agrana is mainly supplying to international food industry, with some minor end customer business. A known brand is Wiener Zucker. Agrana runs around 50 facilities with major production bases in Australia, Austria, Argentina, Brasil, China, France, Germany, Hungary, South Korea, Morocco, Mexico, Poland, Romania, South Africa, Ukraine, and the United States.
Südzucker AG is a German company, the largest sugar producer in the world, with an annual production of around 4.8 million tonnes.
Spalding Power Station is a 860 MW gas-fired power station one mile north of Spalding on West Marsh Road close to the River Welland. The current site provides enough electricity for one million households.
Glanford Brigg Power Station is a gas-fired power station in North Lincolnshire, England. It is capable of firing diesel as a substitute of natural gas. It is situated on the River Ancholme, beside the Sheffield to Cleethorpes via Brigg Line, outside the town of Brigg, with its name coming from the former name for the town. It has a generating capacity of 240 megawatts (MW).
Jeffrey Steven White is a senior United States district judge of the United States District Court for the Northern District of California.
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 and its leaders. It was notable for developing a valuable cash crop and processing facilities that was important to the economy of Utah and surrounding states. It was part of the Sugar Trust, and subject to antitrust investigations by the U.S. Department of Justice, the Federal Trade Commission, and the Hardwick Committee.
Allscott is a small village 3 miles (4.8 km) north west of Wellington, Shropshire. The River Tern flows by. It falls within the parish of Wrockwardine and the borough of Telford and Wrekin. Nearby is the small village of Walcot.
American Crystal Sugar Company is an agricultural cooperative specializing in the production of sugar and related agri-products. American Crystal is owned by nearly 2,800 shareholders who raise approximately one-third of the nation's sugarbeet acreage in the Red River valley of Minnesota and North Dakota. As the largest beet sugar producer in the United States, the company utilizes innovative farming practices, low-cost production methods, and sales and marketing leadership to produce and sell about 15 percent of America's sugar. American Crystal operates sugar factories in Crookston, East Grand Forks, and Moorhead, Minnesota; Drayton and Hillsboro, North Dakota. The company's technical services center and corporate headquarters are also located in Moorhead.
Paul Robert Kenward is a British businessman, managing director of British Sugar and a director of several other companies.
The Mount Clemens Sugar Company was a local venture in Mount Clemens, Michigan, which processed sugar beets into refined sugar, and which operated from 1901 until 1950.
{{cite web}}
: CS1 maint: url-status (link)