TheTallGuy
Member
- Location
- Cambridgeshire
But that is not a monopoly... it's a monopsony.
British Sugars Penultimate Sugar Campaign. 2021/22
- Thread starter Daniel
- Start date
ollie989898
Member
You agree then that for people who have only one potential buyer or outlet of their product, the situation is far from ideal?
A farmer selling grain has no such issue- there are multiple homes, buyers and outlets. For beet, you have... British sugar. Whose price is the price, take it or leave it.
If I have understood correctly, BS are now complaining they are short of 200,00 tonnes of beet. Given the peculiar nature of the supply chain in this instance, it's difficult to see who else is to blame?
If importing something is their only potential solution, it does make you wonder why it hasn't been done before?
- Location
- Breckland
I can, yes
tate and Lyle had a huge bonus recently as the government allowed them to import a big extra chunk of raw sugar without tariff. That has exerted alot of price pressure on BS. That squeeze is now heading down the chain to the growers.
Unless growers can grow 85+ tonne crops ( lots can) they will lose money. The real issue is the critical mass of growers to sustain the whole UK industry. Not enough growers have confidence to grow because the risks keep growing. Virus, disease, weed control and soil damage.
200000 tonnes short of sugar. That would be 1000000 tonnes of beet.
tate and Lyle had a huge bonus recently as the government allowed them to import a big extra chunk of raw sugar without tariff. That has exerted alot of price pressure on BS. That squeeze is now heading down the chain to the growers.
Unless growers can grow 85+ tonne crops ( lots can) they will lose money. The real issue is the critical mass of growers to sustain the whole UK industry. Not enough growers have confidence to grow because the risks keep growing. Virus, disease, weed control and soil damage.
200000 tonnes short of sugar. That would be 1000000 tonnes of beet.
- Location
- Cheshire
I’m young and my attitude is already fu@k you...
I’m really looking forward too the “I told you so” years followed by the next golden age for farmers as people realise we do need paying properly for their food! 
Despite my reservations I’ve just done a simple mixed farming wildlife offer and applied for the 2 yr legume fallow and quite a bit of the in field grass strips, which can be up to 30% of a field and pays £260 acre. Got to be better than most break crops . Looking to take out all the awkward corners and horrible headlands .We used to grow beet when Allscott factory was still open, and funny enough started growing some again last year, but this time for AD .
TheTallGuy
Member
- Location
- Cambridgeshire
Of course BS dominate the market... the competition from importation means that the margins aren't strong enough to encourage investment for new entrants to the market.
It is worth remembering that something like 85% of their sugar output goes into industrial and catering uses, so they have little scope to play the "buy British" or "low food miles" cards to obtain a premium from the credulous masses of urban middle classes.
As for being short... every year BS have to juggle figures for estimated requirements, pests & diseases, yields, sugar content, farmers willing to sign contracts. Not everything can be reliably predicted.
Importing is an absolute last step for them as their factories and processes aren't optimised to work that way, unlike the competition, so is not cost efficient. The alternative would be to fail to supply some of their contracts which potentially results in penalty clauses or handing business to the competition.
ollie989898
Member
It's an international commodity, I don't think the low food miles thing is gonna wash with sugar either given the complexity of the production process and how much energy is used during the process. I'm still less than convinced that beet is actually the most efficient way of obtaining the stuff in the first place.
If the bulk of their output goes into industrial use or mass catering where no one gives a stuff where it comes from then surely it is AOK to use imported syrup or granules anyway?
- Location
- Lincolnshire
Sugar beet was historically developed by the Germans / Austrians who didn’t have an empire from which to import cane sugar.
I think that says it all really. We are probably reverting back to “empire suppliers” as we drift away from the EU.
My onetime engineering colleague went on to work for T & L. They quite legally drew an EU subsidy for refining cane sugar here but he reckoned the sugar or syrup wherever it was, was already 99% refined by the time it arrived here, the refinement being much more cost effective to do at the plant in Africa before shipping. He was also somewhat perplexed that T& L developed a synthetic sugar substitute called Splendor (?) that eroded their own natural sugar market.
They certainly work in mysterious ways.
I think that says it all really. We are probably reverting back to “empire suppliers” as we drift away from the EU.
My onetime engineering colleague went on to work for T & L. They quite legally drew an EU subsidy for refining cane sugar here but he reckoned the sugar or syrup wherever it was, was already 99% refined by the time it arrived here, the refinement being much more cost effective to do at the plant in Africa before shipping. He was also somewhat perplexed that T& L developed a synthetic sugar substitute called Splendor (?) that eroded their own natural sugar market.
They certainly work in mysterious ways.
TheTallGuy
Member
- Location
- Cambridgeshire
From what I know, I would say that beet is no better or worse than cane overall as some of the energy used in the process is recoverable and the "waste" streams are efficiently processed as either digestate or animal feed. The efficiency of cane sugar is negated by shipping half way around the world & unfortunately the bulk of cane is grown in locations where sustainability and long term health of the soil isn't necessarily a high priority.
Looking at the absolute mess people make around here most years growing sugar beet I don’t think ‘care for the land’ is a particularly good argument I’m afraid.
spin cycle
Member
- Location
- north norfolk
I’m young and my attitude is already fu@k you...
i'm older but take same attitude
why the feck you would grow beet unless stuck in a contract is beyond me TBH
Because it has stacked up well financially until last yeari'm older but take same attitude
TheTallGuy
Member
- Location
- Cambridgeshire
I was thinking more about the clearing of the rainforests to intensively farm the land until it is barren & then move on brigade...
- Location
- the brecks norfolk
i'm older but take same attitude
And we're quite good at it, it suites our setup well and we really quite enjoy growing them.
- Location
- Lincolnshire
Perhaps, like packs of cigarettes with pictures of cancerous lungs on them, cane sugar should come with pics of burnt rainforest; palm oil based products with shot monkeys; and batteries a picture of the wasteland at Norilsk?
Reality - customers more likely to whine about mud on road, and the rhythmic clunkclunkclunk of loading beet lorries at 6am. Both these were on local FB page.
Hindsight
Member
- Location
- Lincolnshire
I commented in an earlier post that the future of sugar beet in UK is symptomatic of the broader issue facing society as a whole - and thus government. Where does UK food come from and how is it grown. The presumption being sugar will continue to be used within food that we all eat - you know cakes, biscuits etc. Certainly not seen any reduction in sugar use in the 'The Great British Bake Off', or a change to factory produced substitutes.
Of course it is an irrelevant issue (!) in that how many of the general public give this consideration - same number I presume as me and the rest give global warming - think about it but do not make much change to my lifestyle - until forced by government.
I am always impressed with the successful direct drilling system operated by ajd on Hanslope series boulder clay. And I concur with his understandable disparaging comments on the effect on soil of sugar beet and in earlier threads autumn harvested root vegetable damage soil. But ajd have you removed from your family diet all sugar grown from beet - in cakes, biscuits, processed foods and drinks etc, As well as those autumn / winter harvested vegetables??? I tease.
No of course not, and I’m not really bothered about eating imported food to be honest. Some places are better at growing things more sustainably than over here.
I think this rhetoric that everything that is imported is grown on land that used be rainforest is getting abit ridiculous and seems to be the main argument farmers are using.
french wine ‘came from a chopped down rain forest in Eastern France’
Canadian wheat ‘ bloody Canadians chopped down the rainforest and are now flooding our markets with wheat’.
TheTallGuy
Member
- Location
- Cambridgeshire
Have you looked at where sugar cane is grown & the percentage of cane grown to sustainability standards?
Wheat doesn't need to take the blame for rainforests as it causes it's own raft of problems, but that's another story.
I was being abit sarky, but all I hear from the nfu and farmers is about rain forests!