The Peterborough Evening Telegraph
BRITISH SUGAR’S GROWTH PLANS
Peterborough company looks to new opportunities at home and abroad
A Peterborough-based sugar manufacturer is drawing up plans for a new era of growth after European quota rules were axed.
British Sugar, based in Sugar Way, Woodston, where it employs 200 staff, is preparing for expansion after restrictions on the amount of sugar it can sell were scrapped.
The move has been welcomed by Paul Kenward, managing director of British Sugar, who has previously told how excellent growing weather three years ago left the company with 400,000 tonnes more sugar beet than it was allowed to sell by the EU.
It cost British Sugar millions of pounds to store the beet, retrieve it and process it in the following years.
He said: “This is a red letter day for the homegrown sugar industry.
“It gives us an opportunity to grow and prosper with no limit on the amount of sugar we can sell in the UK, Europe and around the world. Sugar quotas abolition will benefit consumers, and also our growers.
He said: “The remarkable progress made in recent years to transform the European sugar sector is due in no small measure to the efforts of the UK government.
“A surprising number of people don’t realise half of all demand for sugar in the UK is met by homegrown sugar beet. Farmers in this country have been successfully growing beet for more than a century, and yields have improved by 50 per cent over the last three decades.
“Combined with substantial productivity gains and £250 investment in our manufacturing plants, we’re proud to be ranked among the lowest cost beet sugar producers in the world.”