Sugar from cane and beet to the sugar bowl: milled, refined, shipped

By Alykhan Virani. Published 2026-10-10.

Part 7 of the series From source to store.

In 2025/26 mills in Brazil’s Center-South, its main cane region, directed 50.38% of the sugar content of their cane (total recoverable sugars) to sugar and 49.62% to ethanol, against 48.06% to sugar in 2024/25 (UNICA, 30 April 2026). USDA puts Brazil at 59% of world sugar exports in calendar 2025 (USDA, 20 April 2026); in 2024 Brazil exported 39.18 million tonnes under HS 1701, 55.2% of world weight and 47.5% of world value (CEPII BACI). The largest exporter also runs a fuel business that competes for the same cane. “Sugar” here means centrifugal sugar, the crystals spun out of boiled syrup, unless the text names cane, beet or molasses.

How it is grown

Sugarcane is a tropical grass, and FAOSTAT lists 94 countries producing it in 2024. After the first “plant cane” crop, the stubble regrows and is cut again roughly yearly; a Florida field averages three annual crops before replanting, and a crop needs about 12 months to mature (University of Florida IFAS, revised May 2018; Florida only).

Beet is a temperate root. A 1999 FAO and EBRD handbook describes it as a biennial that stores sugar in its first year, with spring sowing and harvest in the first autumn or early winter (FAO/EBRD, October 1999). The site’s harvest calendar, built on USDA crop calendars, shows beet harvest in September to December in France and the United States, and cane harvest in April to November in Brazil’s Center-South.

Cane supplied 80.1% of the 178.9 million tonnes of world sugar in 2022 and beet 19.9% (ISO Sugar Year Book 2023, tel quel basis). Brazil made 36.3 million tonnes of cane sugar, India 36.2 million and Thailand 13.3 million, while the EU-27 made 14.33 million tonnes of beet sugar out of 14.5 million in all (ISO, 2022). In the United States beet made 55.8% of 2022 sugar, 4.38 of 7.85 million tonnes (ISO). FAOSTAT counted 293.6 million tonnes of sugar beet in 2024, led by Russia at 15.9%, and 1,932.7 million tonnes of cane, 39.3% of it in Brazil (FAOSTAT; crop weight, not sugar).

Harvest methods differ. In Brazil’s Center-South about 99% of cane is cut by machine, against about 27% in the Northeast (USDA, 20 April 2026; year of the estimate not stated). In Thailand 97% of the 2025/26 cane harvest was green, not burned, against 85% in 2024/25 and a 10-year average of 63% (USDA FAS Bangkok, 20 April 2026).

From field to raw sugar

A cut stalk starts losing sugar. South Africa’s sugar research institute puts the loss at about 0.25 percentage points of recoverable value for every 24 hours between harvest and crush, and cites Bonsucro’s maximum delays of 16 hours for machine-cut cane and 48 hours for hand-cut burned cane (SASRI, April 2023; Bonsucro standard, January 2022).

At the mill, knives and rollers crush the cane, and the crushed cane that leaves the last mill, called bagasse, is the main boiler fuel. Lime and heat at about 95 degrees Celsius clarify the juice, typically five evaporators thicken it to a syrup of about 65% solids, and vacuum pans crystallize it. Centrifuges spin the crystals from the molasses (EPA AP-42, June 1997). In 2025/26 the Center-South crushed 611.15 million tonnes of cane at 74.4 tonnes per hectare and made 40.43 million tonnes of sugar, or 66.15 kilograms per tonne of cane, The region’s ethanol output was 33.72 billion liters, of which 9.19 billion liters (27.28%) came from corn made at corn plants (UNICA, 30 April 2026).

Beet follows a similar path. Factories slice washed beet into cossettes, soak them in water at about 70 degrees Celsius for about an hour, purify the juice and crystallize it. In that handbook’s figures beet averages 16% sugar, about 80% of it recovered, up to 130 kilograms of white sugar per tonne. Beet juice is paler, so factories make white sugar directly, and they run about 90 days a year (a 1999 FAO/EBRD handbook).

Refining and the white sugar chain

Refining washes raw sugar, melts and clarifies it, strips color with granular carbon, bone char or resins, and recrystallizes it as white sugar (EPA AP-42, June 1997). The ICE raw sugar contract specifies raw centrifugal cane sugar at 96 degrees average polarization. The ICE white sugar contract specifies at least 99.8 degrees, moisture of at most 0.06% and color of at most 45 ICUMSA units (ICE, accessed 10 October 2026).

Brazil mostly makes the raw form. Of the 43.3 million tonnes (raw value) of sugar it made from 1 April 2025 to 16 March 2026, 70.2% was very high polarization (VHP) raw sugar and 24.0% was crystal sugar of 0 to 180 ICUMSA (Brazil’s Ministry of Agriculture, in USDA, 20 April 2026; shares computed here).

Trade data show the split. In 2024 the world exported 40.70 million tonnes of raw cane sugar (HS code 170114) worth $22.00 billion, or $541 per tonne, and 26.42 million tonnes of refined sugar (170199) worth $18.36 billion, or $695 per tonne (CEPII BACI; unit values are not prices). Those lines are 94.5% of the 71.0 million tonnes exported under HS 1701. Five countries held 88.9% of raw export value, Brazil alone 73.1% ($16.09 billion). The top five in refined held 47.6%: Brazil 15.1%, India 9.7%, France 8.7%, Thailand 7.4% and Germany 6.7% (CEPII BACI, 2024).

In 2024 Morocco imported 1.96 million tonnes of raw sugar and exported 1.24 million of refined, and Saudi Arabia imported 1.89 million and exported 0.85 million (CEPII BACI HS 170114 and 170199; the tables do not link flows).

Moving it

The ICE raw contract delivers free on board (FOB) to the receiver’s vessel at a port in the country of origin, one of 29 listed origins including Brazil, India, Thailand and Australia. The ICE white contract delivers FOB stowed in the vessel’s hold in one of 50 listed countries, among them France, Germany and Poland (ICE, accessed 10 October 2026; counted here). The FOB, CIF and Incoterms explainer covers freight. The World Bank’s raw sugar series averaged $0.41 per kilogram in September 2026, against $0.35 in September 2025 (World Bank Pink Sheet, nominal, published to two decimals; about 18.6 US cents a pound).

Santos exported 24.1 million tonnes of sugar in 2025, second to soybeans at 44.9 million, out of 137.4 million tonnes of exports (Agência Brasil, 17 January 2026, reporting Port of Santos totals). Paranaguá moved more than 7 million tonnes of bulk and bagged sugar in 2024, up 20% on 2023 (Ministry of Ports and Airports, as reported by Brasil 61, 18 May 2025). In calendar 2025 five traders held 58.9% of Brazil’s bulk sugar exports, led by Wilmar at 16% and Alvean at 13.7% (USDA, citing public data).

Many buyers rely on one origin. Brazil supplied 97.2% of Saudi Arabia’s 2024 sugar imports by value ($2.12 billion), 98.8% of India’s ($1.66 billion), 79.8% of China’s ($1.77 billion) and 59.9% of Indonesia’s (CEPII BACI, HS 1701). Thailand, the second-largest exporter, shipped 3.63 million tonnes of HS 1701 sugar in 2024, 5.8% of world export value (CEPII BACI).

Packing and getting it to you

Food manufacturers take most of the sugar in at least one market. From October 2025 to June 2026 US beet processors, cane processors and cane refiners delivered 7.51 million tonnes (8.28 million short tons) of sugar, actual weight, for human use and re-export. Bakery and cereal makers took 22.4%, wholesalers 19.2% and retail grocers 10.6%, and the bakery, confectionery, dairy, beverage, canned and “multiple and other” food-use categories together took 64.3% (USDA Farm Service Agency, 12 August 2026; shares computed here). On a raw-value basis (8.85 million short tons, 8.03 million tonnes), consumer-size packages were 16.1% of deliveries, packages of 50 pounds or more 27.4%, bulk 40.5% and non-crystalline sugars 16.0% (shares computed here).

Quotas shape imports. For the US fiscal year of 1 October 2025 to 30 September 2026, the in-quota raw cane sugar tariff-rate quota is 1,117,195 tonnes raw value, the refined quota 22,000 tonnes raw value, and Brazil’s raw allocation 155,993 tonnes raw value, or 14.0% (USTR, 15 August 2025). Over-quota sugar can still enter at a higher tariff (USDA, 20 April 2026).

Where the chain is thin

What happens when Brazil’s cane crop falters?

The Center-South made 93% of Brazil’s 43.3 million tonnes of 2025/26 sugar (USDA, 20 April 2026). UNICA put the Center-South yield at 74.4 tonnes per hectare, 4.1% below the prior season, and CONAB put the national yield at 75.2 tonnes per hectare, 2.6% lower, citing drought, heat and fires (UNICA; CONAB, 17 April 2026, as summarized by FAESP). USDA says fires hit 180,000 to 450,000 hectares of cane in August and September 2024 and wilt syndrome affected about 30% of fields with about 45% losses (USDA, citing Cepea).

How much does India’s policy move trade?

India’s Directorate General of Foreign Trade placed sugar exports under a restricted category, meaning exports need government permission, from 1 June 2022 (Notification 10/2015-20, 24 May 2022) and on 18 October 2023 extended the restriction beyond 31 October 2023 until further order, except EU and US quota shipments (DGFT, as reported by PTI). Exports then ran through quotas: 1 million tonnes were permitted for 2024/25 and 1.5 million tonnes for 2025/26 (Tribune of India; Global Trade Alert). On 13 May 2026 DGFT moved raw, white and refined sugar from restricted to prohibited until 30 September 2026 or further orders, with EU and US quota shipments, advance-authorization exports, government-to-government sales and shipments already in the pipeline exempt (DGFT Notification 16/2026-27); this post found nothing on its status after 30 September 2026. USDA shows India’s exports at 11.55 million tonnes raw value in 2021/22, 17.9% of the world’s 64.46 million, and 3.83 million in 2024/25, 5.9% of 64.81 million (USDA, May 2026). These figures show the sequence, not the cause.

What if the port or the railway stops?

Sugar was 17.5% of Santos’s 2025 export tonnage (24.1 of 137.4 million tonnes; Agência Brasil), and DatamarNews reported on 21 August 2025 that Louis Dreyfus opened a São Paulo state rail terminal with 90,000 tonnes of storage as an alternative to the dominant road haul to Santos. A chokepoint is a narrow point many shipments must pass, and a single port and its access routes form one.

How does ethanol tie sugar to oil?

Brazil raised the ethanol blend in gasoline from 27% to 30% in August 2025, and in the first quarter of 2026 hydrous ethanol paid producers on average 20% more than sugar (USDA, 20 April 2026, citing Rabobank and Bloomberg). Industry specialists cited by USDA say higher gasoline prices make ethanol more profitable relative to sugar and shift the mix, and USDA also cites falling sugar prices since June 2025, with ICE No. 11 at 13.7 US cents a pound on 13 April 2026 (USDA, 20 April 2026).

Follow the data

The sugar commodity page holds the producer and trade tables, the prices page tracks the World Bank raw sugar series, the trade flows report maps the corridors and the harvest calendar shows who cuts in which month. See producing, exporting and processing for why rankings differ, the pages for Brazil, India and Thailand, and the glossary entries for Incoterms and export bans.

ISO uses calendar 2022, USDA marketing years, FAOSTAT crop weights and BACI calendar 2024, so ratios across sources are not like for like. Nothing here is investment advice.

Prices are monthly benchmark averages that lag the market; informational only, not investment advice.