Sugar from the beet
From farm to factory to table, these photographs from the Daily Herald Archive show the booming sugar beet industry in the 1930s.
What is sugar?
Sugar is a form of carbohydrate divided into simple sugars—glucose, fructose and galactose—and compound sugars—sucrose (glucose + fructose), lactose (glucose + galactose) and maltose (two molecules of glucose). The most common sugar found in our food and drink is sucrose.
Daily Herald Photograph: Sugar beetsNational Science and Media Museum
Where does sugar come from?
Sucrose is found in almost all plants, but the highest concentrations are in sugarcane at 7–19% and sugar beet at 8–22%. Sugar beet has been grown as a vegetable for centuries, but it wasn’t until 1747 that German chemist Andreas Marggraf was able to produce sugar from it.
Daily Herald Photograph: Sugar beetsNational Science and Media Museum
A Dutch alliance
The first UK sugar beet factory was built in 1860 at Lavenham in Suffolk; however, it failed after a few years due to a lack of government support. In 1912 a factory, featured in some of these photographs, was built by Dutch investors at Cantley in Norfolk.
Sugar shortages
Due to bad floods and the disruption caused by the First World War, production at Cantley was slow to start, but the factory became very successful in the 1920s. Following the war, shortages in sugar imports led to prohibitive costs and a focus on home-grown sugar.
Daily Herald Photograph: Sugar beetsNational Science and Media Museum
A booming industry
More factories were built; by 1928 there were 18 operating across the UK, including Spalding in Lincolnshire, Peterborough in Cambridgeshire, and Selby in Yorkshire. Sugar was called ‘the Fairy Prince of British industry’, creating thousands of new jobs.
Daily Herald Photograph: Sugar beetsNational Science and Media Museum
A new age
Sugar beet was processed by 13 autonomous companies that all had a family-run feel to them. But in 1936 these companies were amalgamated under the Sugar Industry Act to form British Sugar Corporation. In the 1930s, sugar beet represented about 1/5 of sugar consumption in the UK.
Sugar from a root
Sugar beet was sown in the spring and harvested in autumn and winter. The factory in Spalding recorded being open 24/7 from October to January in 1930. Beets could be harvested with the help of a horse and plough, although a tractor was more common by the 1930s.
Daily Herald Photograph: Sugar beetsNational Science and Media Museum
From farm to factory
After roots were gathered, they were loaded into trucks or horse-drawn carts for transfer to factories for processing. Thousands of acres were purchased for growing sugar beet near the Cantley factory, but other farms were further away, so the railway became crucial.
Daily Herald Photograph: Sugar beetsNational Science and Media Museum
The golden service
To cope with the huge volume of sugar beet being processed, some railway lines—like the GWR—had a field-to-factory service including an express freight train and specially fitted road motor lorries. In 1930 alone the LNER handled around 1 million tons of beet.
A little elbow grease
On arrival at the factories, sugar beet was unloaded from trucks or train wagons to make huge ‘mountains’ of beet. The head of each sugar beet was removed individually by hand and reused as animal feed.
Daily Herald Photograph: Sugar beetsNational Science and Media Museum
A little clean
With the heads removed, the sugar beet was ready to be processed in the factory. Huge water channels would wash the beet directly in the factory—with a little help from employees—and clean it on the way.
How is the sugar made?
The sugar beet was sliced into thin strips called cossettes, which were fed into a diffusion vessel. The sugar was then extracted from these strips by mixing with hot water; the exhausted slices could be reused as animal feed.
SMG00377075_0001National Science and Media Museum
This syrup solution was then filtered, heated, and seeded with sugar crystals. Finally, the sugar crystals were washed, dried and cooled. Employees responsible for this part of the process might expect to work in temperatures of around 110°F or 43°C.
From factory to table
After processing, the sugar was ready to be packaged and driven or shipped around the country for consumption. In this photograph, sacks of granulated sugar from the factory in Cantley are being unloaded from SS Assiduity at the London docks.
Sugar beet is still grown in the UK today and represents around 50–60% of our sugar consumption. The other 40–50% comes from European imported sugar beet and imported sugar cane refined by Tate and Lyle on the banks of the Thames.
British Sugar Corporation became British Sugar in the 1980s and is still the sole processer of sugar beet in the UK, working out of its factories in Cantley, Bury St Edmunds, Wissington and Newark.
All images are from the Science Museum Group collection. Copyright Mirrorpix, Hulton Archive/Getty Images, and TopFoto.
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