Journey of the sugar beet
SUGAR IN OUR COFFEE, ON OUR PANCAKES AND IN OUR PASTRIES. IT ALL STARTS WITH A TINY SEED THAT GROWS INTO A SUGAR BEET. HOW DOES THIS BEET END UP IN OUR FOOD AND DRINKS AND EVEN IN OTHER PRODUCTS LIKE PAPER AND COSMETICS? FOLLOW THE BEET ON ITS JOURNEY TO FIND OUT!
March to April
Sowing
The journey starts in March when we wait for Mother Nature to provide the right conditions for the beet seeds to grow. Sowing is ideally done as early as possible, but usually after 10 March. Before then, the risk of prolonged spells of cold weather is still too high.
Harvesting Journey of the sugar beet
May to September Growing
As soon as the seed has been planted in the perfectly fertilised soil, it can start to grow. Throughout May, June and July, the growth is mostly in the plant’s leaves. They spread out until they touch the leaves of the beets next to them, achieving maximum sunlight exposure. From that point, the sugar beet – the plant’s root – takes over and keeps on growing until the end of September. When growth halts, the root’s sugar content continues to increase.
May to September
Threats
Out in the field, the sugar beets are constantly under threat from extreme weather, insects, diseases and weeds. Fortunately, growers are on hand to help them through it all with precision crop protection and weed control.
September
to December Harvesting
By September, the vast majority of beets are ready for harvest. Mother Nature plays an important role here, too: the beets cannot be harvested if the ground is too wet. When the time is just right, the harvesters descend on the fields, removing the beets, leaves, cutting off the tops, lifting them out of the ground and removing as much sand or clay as possible.
Storing
After harvesting, the beets are ready for collection. While they wait for the trucks to arrive, growers keep the beets well ventilated to ensure they stay cool and dry. And they cover them to protect them from frost.
September to January Loading
Weighing
When the trucks arrive in Dinteloord, their first stop is the weighbridge. Afterwards, they proceed to the Central Tare Station (CTS), where parts of their loads are sampled and analysed for properties such as the tare ratio (the ratio of beets to nonbeet debris like sand and stones) and how much sugar, potassium, sodium and other substances they Growing
Beets are always stored in an easily accessible location so they can be loaded onto the trucks quickly and safely. This job is done with a crane or
a beet cleaner loader. This machine cleans the beets and loads them onto the truck via a conveyor belt.
September to January Transport
The start of the harvest also marks the start of the sugar beet campaign. Trucks drive back and forth from the farms to the beet processing factories, moving around 1,100 loads per factory per day. Some loads are transported by water, which reduces carbon emissions and helps prevent traffic jams being caused by our trucks.
Weighing and sampling
contain. Samples from loads arriving in Vierverlaten are bagged and sent to Dinteloord for analysis at the CTS.
1 week Temporary storage
To ensure a continuous supply to the factory, a good quantity of beets is always kept in the Large Storage Area. The beets are held in this open air facility for up to a week. To make sure they stay in top condition, they are stored in small piles no more than 4 metres high.
3 minutes
To the factory
Next, the beets are sent back underground on a subterranean conveyor belt that runs from the storage area, right through the dyke, and up to the factory. The beets are deposited in the factory’s tipping pits and moved onto the “dirty beet belt”.
15 minutes Washing
Until now, the beets have been
accompanied on their journey by soil, stones and other non-beet debris. Now it’s time to separate them. A magnet above the belt extracts any debris made of iron as the beets make their way to the pre-wash drum. The beets are then pre-washed and given a thorough high-pressure wash before moving on to the next step.
By-products: sand, clay and beet tips
At this point, the sand, clay, small beet tips and dirty water part ways and continue on their own journeys not as waste, but as valuable residual streams. The sand and clay are used for land reclamation and to reinforce roads and dykes. The beet tips and water are sent to the anaerobic digester digeste plant or the methane reactor, where they are used to make biogas.
few seconds
Cutting
Meanwhile, in the factory, the freshly washed beets travel along the ‘clean beet belt’ to the beet bunker, where
cutting mills rapidly slice them into small strips.
2 hour
Sap extraction
The beet strips continue to the heating trough to be heated to 72°C. The heat makes their cell walls permeable, allowing the sugar to be released. The next stop is the diffusion tower. Over the next two hours, the beet strips are moved from the bottom to the top of the tower via a transporter belt while water flows over them from top to bottom, taking the sugar with it as it goes. The resulting raw juice that’s collected in the bottom of the tower has a sugar content of 14%.
By-product: beet pulp
What’s left at the top of the tower is the wet beet pulp. Most of the sugar has now been removed, but this pulp is still very useful. Some of it is used to make an ingredient for meat and fish substitutes: Fidesse®. The rest of the wet pulp goes through a conveyor
Temporary storage
To the factory
By-products: beet tips
Washing
Sap extraction
Cutting
By-product: beet pulp
Journey of the sugar beet
By-product Betacal®
By-product: beet water
Boiling
By-product: molasses
screw to the pulp press. Over the next 15 minutes, it’s turned into press pulp, a raw material for cattle feed, biogas, paper, paint, dishwasher tablets, plant food, antifreeze and many other products.
4-5 hour
Juice purification
Meanwhile, the raw juice enters the next stage: juice purification. Lime (calcium hydroxide) is added to remove all the substances that are superfluous to the rest of the sugar production process. This is done at a temperature of 85°C. CO2 is bubbled into the juice, and the chemical reaction creates a by-product that is filtered out. The temperature is then raised to 95°C, and CO2 is bubbled into the liquid again. This removes the ‘hardness’ (calcium and magnesium ions) from the juice. The entire process takes 4 to 5 hours and results in a thin juice with a sugar content of about 17%.
By-product: Betacal®
As well as the thin juice, purification creates a by-product, a thick residue that can be used as an agricultural soil conditioner: Betacal®. Some of this is sent to its next destination in liquid form, which is known as Betacal® Flow. The rest is kept at the factory, stored in pits or spread out on yards where it is dried over several months to create Betacal® Filter.
20 - 30 minutes
Evaporation
Meanwhile, the thin juice is placed in an evaporator and heated to 130°C via an internal heat exchanger that uses steam from boilers fuelled by natural gas or biogas. This removes the water from the thin juice, increasing its sugar content. This process is repeated multiple times. After about 20 to 30 minutes, the thin juice has turned into thick juice with a sugar content of 70%.
By-product: beet water
Sugar beets are 75% water, so a considerable amount of water is released by evaporation. This water is condensed and reused in the beet washing and diffusion processes. Sugars inevitably end up in the “beet water” used for washing, but these are not wasted – they can be used as a raw material for making biogas.
January to April
Thick juice storage
A portion of the thick juice is stored in 3 thick juice tanks (per factory) until after the beet campaign. Each tank has a capacity of 82,000 tonnes, ensuring that the factory can still produce approximately 140,000 tons of sugar from April to mid-June and guarantee ample supplies all year round.
6 hour
Boiling
In the factory, the thick juice enters the boiling pans where it is brought to the boil to thicken it further. Here, the first tiny sugar crystals start to form, and in a series of steps over the next 6 hours, they turn into ‘mature’ sugar crystals. This results in a mixture of syrup and crystals.
“THE FIRST TINY SUGAR CRYSTALS START TO FORM”
2-3 minutes
Centrifuging
Once the sugar crystals are the right size, the mixture is put into a centrifuge. Beautiful white crystals emerge from one side and dark sugar syrup from the other. The dark syrup is then transferred to another stage in the boiling station to extract as much sugar as possible. It is centrifuged again, and the process is repeated one final time.
By-product: molasses
After this final step, there is very little sugar left. The remaining syrup is molasses, another very useful raw material that is used to make food and livestock feed.
5 minutes
Drying
The sugar crystals continue their journey and enter the drying drums. They still contain some moisture, and this must be removed before the sugar can be stored. The drying drums heat the sugar crystals to 85°C and reduce the moisture to 0.05%.
5 minutes
Cooling
In the final step of the sugar production process, the sugar crystals are cooled in the fluid bed cooler. Air is blown into the cooler from below, which makes the crystals float slightly, creating a magical display of dancing sugar crystals. In just a few minutes, their temperature is reduced from 65°C to 25°C.
5 days
Production complete
Once cooled, the sugar makes its way to the sugar silos. The granulated sugar is stored here for 5 days before being sent to manufacturers. Some of it is also sent to Cosun Beet Company’s speciality factories, where it is processed and packaged as granulated sugar, soft brown sugar, icing sugar, sugar cubes, vending machine sugar and syrup.
Storage
The remaining granulated sugar is stored in sugar silos until it eventually continues its journey to its final destination.