Sugar. Beet and cane.

New Avon Arms
John Gryphon

John Gryphon

Well-Known Member
Any care to expand on sugar beet sugar? Is it when processed the same as cane sugar? Is there a different taste in ya coffee? I have never seen it sold anywhere but remember Europe had or has quite an industry growing sugar beet. The article below spurred my quest,I had no idea that we had a beet industry.

www.abc.net.au

How Victoria's old sugar beet industry helped dairy farmers prosper

The Glenmaggie Weir was built 100 years ago to supply water to sugar beet farmers, and now keeps local dairy farms going.
www.abc.net.au www.abc.net.au
 
Yes I think pretty much all sugar in UK & Europe (or most of it anyhow) comes from beet. The sugar yield from beet is pretty low compared to cane but all of the beet is used in one way or another. Think you'll find it tastes the same wherever it comes from as it is all sucrose.
 
In the uk, Silverspoon is beet sugar, and Tate and Lyle is cane sugar is what I was led to believe.

As an aside British Sugar is also one of the biggest growers of tomatoes. They use the heat from the water used in the sugar extraction process to heat the glass houses.
 
WH308 said:
In the uk, Silverspoon is beet sugar, and Tate and Lyle is cane sugar is what I was led to believe.

As an aside British Sugar is also one of the biggest growers of tomatoes. They use the heat from the water used in the sugar extraction process to heat the glass houses.
Click to expand...
As an aside. If you go to a certain sugar beet factory in Norfolk, you may find some very strange Tomatoes growing there.
 
John Gryphon said:
Any care to expand on sugar beet sugar? Is it when processed the same as cane sugar? Is there a different taste in ya coffee? I have never seen it sold anywhere but remember Europe had or has quite an industry growing sugar beet. The article below spurred my quest,I had no idea that we had a beet industry.

www.abc.net.au

How Victoria's old sugar beet industry helped dairy farmers prosper

The Glenmaggie Weir was built 100 years ago to supply water to sugar beet farmers, and now keeps local dairy farms going.
www.abc.net.au www.abc.net.au
Click to expand...
When processed to white sugar there is no difference between sugar from cane or beet, many food and drink manufacturers swap between the two depending on price and availability without customers being able to detect any difference in taste. Demerara sugar has cane molasses left in or added.

Sugar cane is not frost hardy whereas sugarbeet is. Just over half of UK sugar is from home grown beet (British Sugar, Silver Spoon) with the balance being cane from former Commonwealth Countries imported and refined by Tate and Lyle under an agreement made when the the UK joined the Common Market.

Australia has one of the most efficient cane sugar industries in the world with its favourable frost free climate on the eastern side of the country. Most European countries have beet sugar industries which probably originated in Poland. The UK’s industry started after the First World War when the German U boat threat reduced free passage of sea borne goods from our Commonwealth. Many Polish engineers were involved with building the early sugar factories here and many of the early beet seed varieties were of Polish origin.
 
@Brian243 as said in my OP ",I had no idea that we had a beet industry."
Of course it would never come back with the amount of cane we grow here.

Next question,whats a sugar beet like when cooked like normal old beetroot?
 
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