Start of the 2022 sugar beet campaign

AGRANA: Start of the 2022 sugar beet campaign


Yesterday, AGRANA started the 2022 sugar beet processing season (campaign) at its sugar refinery in Tulln, Lower Austria. The plant in Leopoldsdorf in the Marchfeld region of Lower Austria will commence sugar beet processing by the middle of October. Due to the unfavourably hot and dry weather conditions during high summer, the sugar beet yields in the 2022 season are somewhat lower than in the previous year at around 75 metric tons per hectare (prior year: 80 metric tons / hectare). The sugar beet processing campaign is expected to be completed in the middle of January 2023.

Beet price forecast nearly doubles to over € 60

The contracting meetings with sugar beet farmers for the 2023 sugar beet growing season have been ongoing since the middle of September. The circumstances surrounding these meetings are very encouraging since the beet prices are based on sugar market prices and these are steady at a high level. As a result, AGRANA expects both a near doubling of the beet price to over € 60.00 per metric ton for those farmers who have already planted sugar beet this year and a high, stable sugar price for the next growing season. The growing target needed to ensure both sugar refineries can operate at full capacity remains at least 38,000 hectares of planted sugar beet and a beet harvest volume of around three million metric tons.

Existing and new beet growers can find all the information needed in relation to contracting for the 2023 growing season under https://ris.agrana.com/. 

About AGRANA Sugar

AGRANA produces sugar at two sugar refineries in Austria, namely Tulln and Leopoldsdorf. The Tulln site is home not only to the administration department but also the central sugar warehouse in which all of the sugar varieties produced and packaged under the Wiener Zucker brand are fully automatically stored and picked in a high-bay warehouse, with a storage capacity of around 8,000 metric tons of sugar products, before being shipped. Sugar shipments from Leopoldsdorf are mainly to the processing industry, both bulk and packaged (Big Bags and 50kg bags).

About AGRANA

AGRANA converts agricultural raw materials into high-quality foods and numerous industrial intermediate products. Around 9,000 employees at 55 production sites worldwide generate annual Group revenue of approximately € 2.9 billion. Established in 1988, the company is the world’s market leader in fruit preparations and the leading producer of fruit juice concentrates in Europe. In addition, its Starch segment is also a major manufacturer of custom starch products (made from potato, corn and wheat) and of bioethanol. AGRANA is the leading sugar producer in Central and Eastern Europe.

For queries, please contact:

Markus Simak
Public Relations
+43 1 21137 12084
markus.simak@agrana.com
 

This announcement is available in German and English at www.agrana.com.