'Golden age for EU sugar producers over - Sugar industry in turmoil since EU scrapped quotas
Cristal Union, France’s second-largest sugar group, said on Monday the “golden age” for European Union sugar producers was over and that it expected significant changes in the EU sugar sector.
“Prices will recover at some point, but we don’t expect them to make it to the level we enjoyed under the quota system,” Cristal Union Chief Executive Alain Commissaire said in his opening remarks at the Dubai Sugar Conference.
The sugar industry has been in turmoil since the European Union scrapped production and export quotas in 2017, prompting many producers to boost output just as sugar prices collapsed under pressure from large world stocks.
Suedzucker, Europe’s largest sugar refiner, said last week it plans to close two German sugar production plants as part of a restructuring programme announced this week.
The plants are in Brottewitz and Warburg and together produce around 200,000 tonnes of sugar annually, a Suedzucker spokesman said.
The company said on Tuesday it plans to cut sugar production volumes by up to around 700,000t per year including factory closures because of the current slump in sugar prices.
Suedzucker produces about 5.9m tonnes of sugar a year.
However, both plants would continue to operate normally in the 2019 sugar production season, he added. The production season starts in the autumn.