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 sugars, are molecules made of two bonded monosaccharides; common examples are sucrose, lactose, and maltose. White sugar is a refined form of sucrose. In the body, compound sugars are hydrolysed into simple sugars.
Splenda is a global brand of sugar substitutes and reduced-calorie food products. While the company is known for its original formulation containing sucralose, it also manufactures items using natural sweeteners such as stevia, monk fruit and allulose. It is owned by the American company Heartland Food Products Group. The high-intensity sweetener ingredient sucralose used in Splenda Original is manufactured by the British company Tate & Lyle.
A sugar beet is a plant whose root contains a high concentration of sucrose and that 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.
Sucrose, a disaccharide, is a sugar composed of glucose and fructose subunits. It is produced naturally in plants and is the main constituent of white sugar. It has the molecular formula C
12H
22O
11.
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.
Golden syrup or light treacle is a thick, amber-coloured form of inverted sugar syrup made by the process of refining sugar cane or sugar beet juice into sugar. It is used in a variety of baking recipes and desserts. It has an appearance and consistency similar to honey, and is often used as a substitute where honey is unavailable.
High-fructose corn syrup (HFCS), also known as glucose–fructose, isoglucose and glucose–fructose syrup, is a sweetener made from corn starch. As in the production of conventional corn syrup, the starch is broken down into glucose by enzymes. To make HFCS, the corn syrup is further processed by D-xylose isomerase to convert some of its glucose into fructose. HFCS was first marketed in the early 1970s by the Clinton Corn Processing Company, together with the Japanese Agency of Industrial Science and Technology, where the enzyme was discovered in 1965.
D-Psicose (C6H12O6), also known as D-allulose or simply allulose, is an epimer of the monosaccharide sugar fructose that is used by some commercial food and beverage manufacturers as a low-calorie sweetener. Allulose occurs naturally in small quantities in a variety of foods. It was first identified in the 1940s, although the enzymes needed to produce it on an industrial scale were not discovered until the 1990s.
The American Sugar Refining Company (ASR) was the most significant American business unit in the sugar refining industry in the early 1900s. It had interests in Puerto Rico and other Caribbean locations and operated one of the world's largest sugar refineries, the Domino Sugar Refinery in Brooklyn, New York.
Domino Foods, Inc. is a privately held sugar marketing and sales company based in Yonkers, New York, United States, that sells products produced by its manufacturing members. DFI distributes sugar to retailers under four brand names across the U.S: Domino,C&H,Florida Crystals, and Redpath. Its namesake product, the Domino Sugar brand name, whose products are generally sold in two-tone packaging with blue labeling text, is the best known. Domino Foods is the largest sugar company in the United States.
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.
Raffinerie Tirlemontoise, a subsidiary of Raffinerie Tirlemontoise Group, is a Belgian sugar producing company. The company whose headquarters is located in Tienen (Belgium) has four business units: sugar activities, Orafti, Surafti and PPE, which together employ more than 1,800 people.
Sucreries Raffineries Bulgares was a Belgian company active in Bulgaria from 1897 to 1916.
American Sugar Refining, Inc. is a large privately held cane sugar refining company, with a production capacity of 6.5 million tons of sugar. The company produces a full line of consumer, industrial, food service, and specialty sweetener products. In 2013, it adopted the corporate brand name ASR Group. Its ownership structure is based on a partnership which includes the Florida Crystals Corporation, part of FLO-SUN, a sugar empire of the Fanjul brothers whose origins go back to Spanish-Cuban sugar plantations of the early 19th century.
Sugar Factory Zeeland was a beet sugar factory in Bergen op Zoom, a city and municipality in the North Brabant province in the Southwestern Netherlands. It got its peculiar name when it was sold to the Coöperatieve Beetwortelsuikerfabriek Zeeland, a cooperative of sugar beet farmers from neighboring Zeeland province. The factory was in operation from 1863 to 1929. Some of the imposing factory buildings remain and are protected as industrial heritage. In 2012 a reconstruction started to change the old buildings to a large shopping mall called De Zeeland.
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 connected to the Wanze Sugar Factory in Belgium was the only remaining operational râperie.
The Wanze Sugar Factory was founded by the Sucreries Centrales SA. It is located in Wanze and is currently owned by Raffinerie Tirlemontoise. Wanze Sugar Factory is the only European sugar factory that still uses an outlying râperie connected by a pipeline. The râperie in Longchamps is located 23 km west of the central factory.
The Sucrerie centrale de Cambrai was a company which had a central beet sugar factory in Escaudœuvres, Nord department, France. This Sucrerie centrale d'Escaudœuvres was fed by about a dozen râperies. In 2003 the company was merged into its owner Tereos. The central factory then continued to operate as Sucrerie Tereos d'Escaudœuvres until 2023. The facilities are now only used for storage and logistics.
€ 4.5 Billion (2019/20)