Sucro Ltd. to Build New Cane Sugar Refinery

Sucro Ltd., an integrated sugar company focused primarily on serving the North American market, is planning to construct a new cane sugar refinery in Chicago, IL, to address the growing and underserved US sugar market.

Once complete, the new refinery will have a similar scale as the company’s Lackawanna facility in New York. The new refinery will have significant specialty sugar capabilities, including large grain crystals used in specialty foods and confectionery, an integrated brown sugar line, specialty liquid production, and organic sugar refining capabilities. The refinery is expected to be operational in 2026.

The Chicago refinery will leverage Sucro’s existing property and sugar processing infrastructure at University Park, IL. The location represents the most inland cane sugar refinery in the US with the capability to serve food processors and manufacturers in the Midwest with a more efficient supply of refined cane sugar and specialty sugars. We expect to fund the equity portion of the facility’s construction costs using internally generated cashflows.

“The US sugar market is chronically short of supply, and demand is growing. This is particularly true in specialty value-added segments like large-grain crystals. Our new Chicago refinery will add much-needed domestic refinery capacity to address the demand for refined sugar and reduce the market’s reliance on imports. The refinery’s primary focus will be higher value specialty sugar products which are in high demand from US food processors and manufacturers,” said Jonathan Taylor, CEO and founder of Sucro.

“The Chicago refinery will represent Sucro’s third new facility in the past five years. Once the new Chicago refinery and the recently announced new refinery in Hamilton, Ontario, CAN are complete, we believe Sucro will be responsible for adding more new capacity to the North American market than all other sugar refiners combined. Sucro is also unique in the industry as the only sugar refiner in North America to widely make available less processed, higher color refined granular sugar. This is the highest growth, most sought-after feature by our multinational customers looking for innovation and flexibility," he added.

Taylor said the new refinery will be closely integrated with the company's existing production assets in Western New York and Southern Ontario, leveraging the strengths and operating capabilities of an efficient network of facilities. "The integrated nature of our production assets is designed to supply competitively priced refined cane sugar for our blue-chip customer base of multi-national food manufacturers in the Midwest.”

The Chicago asset will have fully integrated logistics infrastructure, including inbound and outbound rail and on-road transport capabilities. The new refinery is expected to have 75 full-time equivalent manufacturing and administration positions once completed.