Sugar Beet Operations Shifting Into High Gear

Michigan Sugar Company and its nearly 900 grower-owners are about to kick the 2020 sugarbeet harvest into full swing.
To date, more than 1.2 million tons of sugarbeets have been delivered for slicing to Michigan Sugar Company’s factories in Bay City, Caro, Croswell, and Sebewaing. So far, the factories have sliced just more than 1 million tons with an average daily slice of 21,171 tons of sugarbeets.
Currently sugar content in the beets is anywhere from 17.1% to 17.8%, which is very good for this time of year. To date, Michigan Sugar has packed 278 million pounds of sugar and produced 31,517 tons of molasses.
The harvest is about 27% complete and they plan to begin permanent piling of sugarbeets at factories and piling stations throughout the region on Oct. 19. In the end, grower-owners are expected to harvest about 162,000 acres of sugarbeets totaling about 4.8 million tons.