Growing Sugar Beets requires determination, persistence, hard work and hours in the field. All of our Albertan growers do this to help ensure that Canada has the sweet stuff for that special celebration or treat.
Alberta Sugar Beet Growers has 200 southern Alberta farm families that are proud to be producing the only source of 100% Canadian sugar!
Sugar is a commodity that is bought and sold just like wheat, barley, and other essential raw food ingredients. As a commodity, it is traded on the I.C.E Stock Exchange in its raw form as Sugar #11 and in its refined form as White Refined Sugar.
In Canada, sugar produced from sugar beets competes with raw sugar from sugar cane that is imported from a variety of countries including Brazil, which is Sugar #11 on the stock exchange. Both of these sugars upon refinment can then be sold based on the price of the White Sugars Futures. This requirement to compete with imported raw cane sugar can be burdensome to the farm families here in Southern Alberta has raw cane may in some cases drive down the price that farmers receive for their sugar beets.
Currently, the 200+ farm families that grow sugar beets only supply 8-10% of the total domestic sugar market here in Canada. This is largely due to the fact that raw cane can be imported at some points quite inexpensively.
If you want to support your local growers, just look for the black stamp beginning with ’22’ on any bag from Rogers Sugar – that’s our fully Canadian sugar!
To learn more about growing sugar beets and sugar processing, visit albertasugarbeets.ca.