News

Michigan Sugar wraps up processing, dives into planting

An official with the Michigan Sugar Company says phenomenal weather over the winter led to one of their best processing campaigns and has set up farmers for an early planting season.

Executive Vice President Jim Ruhlman tells Brownfield, “We had high-quality beets going in, almost perfect storage conditions, and our factories ran extremely well.” “We had a processing season like I’ve not seen in many, many years—it was just extraordinary,” he says.

Michigan Sugar sliced more than four million tons of sugarbeets and produced more than 1.17 billion pounds of sugar from beets while setting new records at the Sebewaing and Croswell factories.

Ruhlman says planting started last week just a few days after the final beets of the season were procesed.

“We’re off to a really strong start, I think we’re going to plant about 160,000 acres this year and we’ve got 9,000 in the ground which is a nice start for March,” he shares.

Wet weather and freeze events last year caused Michigan farmers to replant 30,000 acres of sugarbeets but Ruhlman remains optimistic for this season.

Michigan Sugar is also investing more than $100 million in ongoing facility and equipment improvement projects throughout the Thumb of Michigan.