Located in Norfolk and the East Midlands, our state-of-the-art processing plants can match anything in the oil, chemical and power industries for complexity. Together, they extract over 1 million tonnes of sugar from home grown sugar beet between September and March every year.
We aim to transform all of our raw materials into sustainable products and use a highly integrated approach to manufacturing. It is designed to maximise efficiency and avoid unnecessary waste.
Basic sugar production remains at the core of our operations, but process steps have been added to capture raw material outputs and turn them into a range of sustainable products.
We recycle stones for building; lime for soil conditioning and soil for landscaping. Using CHP, we export enough electricity for 350,000 people and use the combustion gases to grow 80 million tomatoes, and we invested in the UK’s first bio-ethanol plant, producing 70 million litres of renewable fuel.
We also have a substantial commitment to research and development, looking at everything from new product development to increasing crop yield.
Since 1980, British Sugar has reduced the energy required per tonne of sugar in the UK by 40%. This has been achieved through a significant investment programme and the innovation demonstrated by our teams.