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British Sugar successfully concludes sugar beet campaign in special centenary year

25 March 2025

The UK’s homegrown sugar beet industry is set to conclude its 2024/25 campaign with the Newark factory the last site to close its gates over the weekend.

A total of 7.7 million tonnes of locally grown sugar beet has been processed by British Sugar’s four factories, producing approximately 1.1 million tonnes of sugar. This campaign also marks a special occasion for two of British Sugar’s largest factories, with both its Bury St Edmunds and Wissington sites celebrating 100 years of beet processing in 2025.

Both sites will celebrate their centenaries throughout the year, with activities and events planned to mark the occasion with local communities and growers, as well as current and former employees.

Dan Green, Agriculture Director at British Sugar said:

"I am pleased to say that the 2024/25 campaign has been a strong one for the UK beet sugar industry. The weather has been – for the most part – kind and, thankfully, the growing area has received nothing like the amount of rain or frost which we experienced in the last two campaigns. Growers have delivered average, or better than usual yields, and this has been complemented by solid factory performances across the board, with a particular callout to Bury and Cantley, both of which had a stellar campaign.

“We’re delighted with the combined efforts of our growers, hauliers, harvesting contractors, factory teams and everyone involved in the campaign for getting us to this stage safely and in good order.”

This campaign also saw the launch of two new apps within the agricultural supply chain called Lifted and Delivered – these are designed to give greater visibility of which crops have been harvested and awaiting collection, as well as logging when it has been delivered to one of the factories.

Dan continues: “We’d just like to say a huge thank you to hauliers and harvesters for their positive engagement since launching both apps at the start of the campaign and for their ongoing feedback. The impact of both Lifted and Delivered has been extremely positive, with over four million tonnes of beet recorded in the Lifted app. This knowledge has afforded us better planning capabilities and given us one of the best Christmas periods we’ve had for years, with all four factories remaining full and running smoothly. 

“We plan to spend the next few months continuing to work with our industry partners, to see where we can make improvements to both apps ahead of the next campaign.”

Aside from this, there were significant investments at all British Sugar’s factories, with the construction continuing of the new £19.5m evaporators at Bury St Edmunds, which will be commissioned for the start of the 2025/26 campaign, reducing scope 1 CO₂e emissions by 20,000 tonnes a year. Bury has also benefitted from a new, state of the art front of house building, due to open this week. At its Cantley site, a new gas turbine has been installed for the Combined Heat and Power (CHP) plant, enabling the site to reduce carbon emissions by around 16,000 tonnes of CO₂e annually.

Dan continues: “In a difficult commercial environment, we are maintaining our significant programme of ongoing investments into operational maintenance and improvements. These improvements help us to maintain productivity and profitability when set against a difficult commercial outlook, as well as delivering against our decarbonisation and sustainability targets.

“The major investments into energy reduction and decarbonisation ensure that we’re setting ourselves up for the future, placing ourselves in the realms of one of the most efficient processors of beet in Europe. With our centenary year at both Bury St Edmunds and Wissington, we’re extremely proud of our history but also are now looking to the future to maintain the homegrown sugar industry for many years and decades to come.”

Looking ahead

With centenary celebrations due to take place throughout the year, Dan’s sights are set on the next crop to go into the ground.

He continues: “Drilling is now underway in some areas and providing some favourable weather and I am optimistic about the coming season. The colder winter and frost patches seen across our growing areas throughout January and February are expected to keep levels of aphids carrying Virus Yellows disease to a minimum but as always this is closely monitored across the industry. In addition, on-farm hygiene will be crucial to further minimise risk posed by aphids. Providing aphid populations stay low, and the summer weather is on our side, we expect to see healthy crops, strong yields and good margins for our growers. Ensuring the viability of our homegrown sugar industry for the future.”

• British Sugar is the sole processor of the UK’s beet sugar crop. Working with around 2,300 growers in the East of England, East Midlands and Yorkshire, our four factories can produce up to 1.2 million tonnes of sugar annually. We create more than 27 different sugar and co-products and produce less than 200 grams of waste for every tonne of sugar beet processed.
• Statistics and figures referenced are British Sugar’s own.
• For more information please contact: press@britishsugar.com