AGRANA Successfully Concludes Sugar Beet Processing Campaign
10 Mar 2015 --- At the weekend AGRANA successfully concluded its processing of sugar beet from the 2014/15 harvest at its sugar mills in Leopoldsdorf and Tulln. With processing periods of 176 days in Tulln and 177 days in Leopoldsdorf, these were AGRANA's longest ever campaigns in Austria.
Despite the particularly high quantities of beet, which represented new challenges in terms of storage, logistics and technology in 2014/15, it was possible to successfully overcome these in the course of this year's sugar beet processing campaign.
In total, around one million tons of sugar, of which around 500,000 tons in Austria, were produced from 7.7 million tons of sugar beet (prior year: 6.2 million tons) at AGRANA’s seven sugar beet refineries in Austria, Hungary, the Czech Republic, Slovakia and Romania over the course of an average processing period of 164 days (prior year: 125 days). AGRANA's domestic sugar mills alone processed 2.1 and 1.8 million tons of sugar beet in Tulln and Leopoldsdorf respectively, which is a remarkable increase compared to the prior year (approx. 3.3 million tons in total).
The yield per hectare, from a total growing area of around 98,000 hectares in all of the producing countries, amounted to an average of 79 tons. The average sugar content was 15.2% (prior year: 17.1%). The weather conditions prevailing during the entire growing period had a very positive impact on the growth of the beet as such, albeit with the reverse effect in terms of the sugar content.
In addition, the rainfall at harvest time led to more difficult harvesting conditions in certain areas. The extraordinarily long storage period also had negative impacts on the quality of the beet and, as a result, the sugar content. The environmentally friendly transportation of the sugar beet this season was again one of the main focuses while organising the campaign. Considering all of the producing countries, around 40% of the beet was transported to the sugar mills by train, with the share of rail-based shipment being the highest in Austria, at approximately 55%.
