Processing

Sugar packaging, shipping, and warehousing along with the storage and sales of byproducts (primarily beet pulp and molasses) are year round operations. Sidney Sugars has the capacity of storing 1.8 million CWT of sugar, 15,000 tons of beet molasses, and 8,500 tons of beet pulp pellets.

During harvest, farmers deliver sugarbeets to a designated beet receiving station where they are weighed and piled. Samples are randomly taken for tare and testing to determine beet quality. On an average year, over the one month harvest period, 900,000 tons of beets are harvested and piled ready for processing.

The beet sugar manufacturing process can be separated into four stages: Diffusion, Juice Purification, Evaporation, and Crystallization. Pulp and Molasses are byproducts which could also be included as another stage in the process.