Crop Information
While sugar is most often associated with cane plants and warm-weather locations, Canada is also a proud producer of this product. However, as a Northern country, the ability to grow sugar cane is lost, resulting in all sucrose coming from the root of a unique plant: the sugar beet.
This white, tear-shaped root weighs between 3-5 pounds and is refined into granulated sugar, icing sugar, molasses, and beet pulp: a high-fiber livestock feed. Currently, there is only one sugar beet refinery in the entire country and this location proudly provides the only source of 100% Canadian sugar products.
Located in Taber, Alberta, 200 local farm families supply the refinery with approximately 840,000 tonnes of sugar beets every year (30 tonnes/acre). This results in 125,000 tonnes of sugar for our store shelves, accounting for 8-10% of Canada’s total sugar consumption. The remaining 90% is brought in as raw cane sugar from South American countries and is then refined in Vancouver, Toronto, and Montreal. However, despite Alberta having a smaller market share, the province’s sugar beet industry is proud to provide over 2000 jobs, $50 million in labor income, and nearly $250 million in economic contribution.
But these numbers also have the opportunity to grow as the demand for sugar beets is ever increasing. In fact, ASBG is investigating alternative uses for the plant, including plant-based proteins, renewable fuels, and biopolymers. And cities such as Toronto even use sugar beet juice instead of salt for de-icing their roads in the winter.
Pursuing these options would allow the number of acres grown in Canada to increase. This is especially exciting as Alberta and Ontario offer a prime climate for sugar beets, with hot days, cool nights, and access to lots of water.
In Alberta, all sugar beets are grown using irrigation, which allows farmers to precisely control the amount of water the crop receives. This alone can be a challenging task as sugar beets require approximately 20” of water throughout their growing season of May to October.
However, each grower continuously puts in the effort to ensure they are producing a top quality product, and because of this, sugar products grown in Canada have been verified as sustainably produced at the FSA Silver Level!
If you would like to support your local sugar beet farmer, just look for Roger’s Sugar in your grocery store. If the black factory stamp begins with ‘22,’ that means the sugar was grown by farm families in Canada!
Click HERE to veiw the 2021 Annual Report
Click HERE to view the 2022 Annual Report
Click HERE to view the 2023 Annual Report
