WHY THIS IS IMPORTANT TO WISCONSIN: Wisconsin businesses offering products or services to the sugar industry may find opportunities in that market.
Canada’s sugar industry is about to expand.
Sucro Can Sourcing says it will open a new sugar refinery in Hamilton in 2025 that will be the largest in the country. The plant will be able to produce 1 million metric tonnes (1.1 million U.S. tons) of refined sugar a year, or 4,000 tonnes (4,410 U.S. tons) a day.
The refinery will be built along Hamilton’s harbor at a site that was the most contaminated Canadian location on the Great Lakes until a huge cleanup project began in 2016, according to CBC/Radio-Canada.
Investors in the $135 million CAD ($97 million USD) plant are Sucro Can and the Hamilton Oshawa Port Authority (HOPA). The facility will add up to 75 jobs and could have a $1 billion CAD ($1.1 billion USD) ripple effect on Canada’s economy as other agri-food businesses may decide to locate near the plant, HOPA president and CEO Ian Hamilton told the CBC.
Canada produces about 1.4 million tonnes (1.5 million U.S. tons) of refined sugar each year, according to the Canadian Sugar Institute. About 92% of that comes from raw sugar cane imported from Central and South America. The rest is from sugar beets, grown primarily in Alberta.
Canada’s sugar industry employs about 1,000 full-time workers, 240 sugar beet growers, and field workers added during spring planting and fall harvest seasons. More than 85% of the refined sugar produced goes for industrial use throughout the country.
Longtime sugar refineries in Canada include Redpath Sugar in Toronto, and Lantic plants in Vancouver and Montreal. Lantic also owns a sugar beet factory in Taber, Alberta. A four-month strike at the Vancouver facility—that ended in February—resulted in intermittent sugar shortages in western Canada, the CBC said, including during the holiday baking season.
Florida-based Sucro Can opened a liquid sugar refinery in Hamilton in 2014 and added a granular refinery and storage facility at the site, five years later.
Wisconsin companies offering products or services to the sugar refining industry may be interested in the latest developments.
