British Sugar successfully concludes record-breaking 228 day campaign including at the sugar factory Newark on Great North Road where 1.7 million tonnes of sugar beet was processed

This year’s sugar beet campaign has finally concluded after a record-breaking 228 days, thought to be one of the longest campaigns in history.

British Sugar’s four factories processed over eight million tonnes of sugar beet during the campaign from September 2023 through to April 2024, producing approximately 1.1 million tonnes of sugar.

All four factories performed well with many records broken; Newark is thought to have experienced the longest sugar beet campaign in Europe totalling 217 days, during which time the factory processed 1.7 million tonnes of sugar beet, equating to approximately 0.21 million tonnes of sugar.

Wissington experienced it’s second largest campaign with over 3.1 million tonnes of beet processed, and Bury St Edmunds achieved a record for maintaining a premium slice rate over a period of 69 days versus 66 days in the previous year.

Recent investment in energy efficiency technology at Wissington with the commissioning of a £17.5mn new evaporator in Autumn 2023, saw CO2e emissions reduce by 25% during this campaign.

Dan Green, agriculture director for British Sugar, said: “We have just concluded one of our longest ever campaigns.

“It has been challenging for the whole industry given the amount of rainfall this winter and we want to recognise the effort our growers, harvesting contractors and hauliers have made to deliver this year’s crop into our factories.

“We are delighted with how well the factories have run over the campaign, showing that the investments we continue to make as a business ensure we are one of the most efficient processors of beet in Europe.”

As part of a multi-million-pound grower support package, British Sugar announced it was decreasing slice rates at its factories to slow down throughput, allowing growers more time to lift and deliver their beet crop.

In addition, a supplementary boiler was hired and commissioned at its Cantley factory, and the business offered to meet 75% of additional costs for Bury and Wissington growers to divert their beet to Cantley or Newark once their closest factory had shut.

With the 23/24 Campaign now finished, heads now turn to the 24/25 campaign.

“This is the fourth year in a row where we have seen drilling take place during mid-Spring,” said Dan Green.

“As of this week, we are over 85% of growing area drilled with sugar beet seed and we expect all crop to be sown by the end of April.

“I am optimistic about the coming season despite the higher Aphid pressure we are seeing this year and obvious concern over potential levels of Virus Yellows.

“The crop area will be over 100,000 hectares, slightly ahead of last year. Providing we have some favourable weather during the summer, we expect to see some good crops, good yields and some good margins for our growers.

“This should encourage further investment in the industry, which is what we all want for the long-term."

British Sugar has some ambitious investment plans over the coming years at each of its four factories and its customer supply site at Bury St Edmunds.

These include, a new turbine for Newark, and a new water treatment plant which is now fully operational.

Steam drying investment at Wissington will hopefully be commissioned for the 26/27 campaign with the potential to reduce site CO2e emissions by a further 50,000 tonnes a year.

New evaporators at Bury St Edmunds pre-silo to remove 20,000 tonnes of CO2e emissions ready for the 25/26 Campaign, and investments into CHP and water treatment plants at Cantley

Final investment underway at the Bury St Edmunds customer supply site for the retail bagging operations.