Suiker Unie has advised the Cosun cooperative’s farmers to plant fewer beet in spring 2019 in order to reduce their beet crop for the 2019 campaign by 10 to 15 %. The definitive reduction will be announced in autumn 2018, depending on the world market outlook and the further development of the 2018 crop.

The 2018 harvest is expected to be similar to that for 2017, with record yields of more than 15 t of sugar per hectare. At the same time, export prices for white sugar are at a ten-year low. Suiker Unie has invested in 300,000 m3 of additional thick juice storage in the past ten years, enabling it to store substantial volumes of sugar to guarantee sufficient sugar supplies to its customers inside and outside the EU in 2019/2020.