How Sweet It Is
How Sweet It Is
Posted April 20, 2015 by Mollee Francisco, Chaska Herald
For more than a century, sugar has been the name of the game at 1060 Stoughton Ave. in Chaska. The sugar factory — now owned by United Sugars Corp. — has been churning out the sweet stuff on the eastern edge of downtown since 1906.
In its earlier days, the sugar factory (which started as Carver County Sugar Co. and was subsequently known as the Minnesota Sugar Co., the American Beet Co. and American Crystal Sugar) was fully functional, processing piles and piles of sugar beets into table sugar — so much so that Chaska was known for a time as “Sugar City.”
Plant manager Dan Lawrence said that at its height, the sugar factory ran three shifts and employed about 400 people. That was back during World War II, when the factory could process some 1,750 tons of beets a day.
Since sugar beet processing ended in the early 1970s, operations in Chaska have been a bit more low-key. Today, there are 15 full-time employees on the local payroll and instead of processing sugar beets into table sugar, they primarily store and distribute bulk refined sugar and make liquid sugar. Lawrence said that about 65 percent of their output is liquid sugar.
That liquid sugar finds its way into everything from soda and yogurt to ice cream and canned fruits and vegetables.
“The sugar that comes out of Minnesota is in a lot of stuff,” said Lawrence.
United Sugars’ customers are well-known food giants including Pepsi, Kraft, Nestle, Schwan’s, ConAgra, Gatorade and Ocean Spray.
So how does one make liquid sugar? The recipe is about as basic as it gets — two parts sugar, one part water.
“It sounds simple, but there’s quite a bit more to it,” said Lawrence.
Lawrence proudly announces that not only have they never had a product recall, they have gone more than 960 days without a lost-time injury. “We’re up for one of three Governor’s Safety Awards,” he said. “We’re the No. 1 distributor of industrial sugar in the nation,” said Lawrence.
And he doesn’t see the demand for sugar decreasing any time soon. “The U.S. market is very strong.”