In the Know About Sugar

Andy Briscoe, Sugar Association

Among the 22,000 or so associations, non-profit organizations and non-government agencies in Washington, D.C., is the Sugar Association. Imperial Sugar Company is a member, but what exactly is this organization and what are some of its key areas of focus?

To get answers, we spoke with Andy Briscoe, president and CEO of the Sugar Association, and a man with more than two decades of experience working public policy initiatives in Washington:

Q: What is the Sugar Association?

A: The Sugar Association is a non-profit trade association based in Washington, D.C., and represents the sugar industry in the United States, both beet and cane sugar. We represent sugar from three perspectives – scientific, public policy and a public relations perspective … helping to promote the benefits and attributes of all-natural sugar.

If consumers have a question about how sugar is used, we are a premier source of information. We have an in-house library of books, studies and articles about sugar so we can help consumers and industrial users from that perspective.

If they have any questions about other types of sweeteners, we can refer them to someone with answers if we don’t have it.

From an overall standpoint, we represent the 146,000 or so farmers and folks who work hard to produce the sugar that we consume in the United States. From a regulatory standpoint, we aim for accuracy in labeling so that when you look at a food product in a grocery store, you know that it contains sugar – or you know what type of sweetener is used by reading the ingredients section of the label. We have petitioned the Food and Drug Administration to adopt a more informative, consumer-friendly label involving all 28 sweeteners used in foods and beverages here in the U.S..

As it relates to artificial sweeteners, we believe they should be put on the front of the package so consumers can realize that a product contains an artificial sweetener … just as they have done in Canada.

We promote sugar as being all natural and only 15 calories. The more consumers find out that sugar is only 15 calories, they say: “Why do we need artificial sweeteners?” And I respond, “Exactly.”

From the standpoint of science, we are always looking for ways to understand how our product is used in the marketplace, both in beverage and foods, how it interrelates with other ingredients in a product, how it provides the taste and certainly the quality industrial users and consumers demand.

We like to think of ourselves as a watchdog as it relates to sugar and primarily sugar consumption. And we like to be pro-active in our food and nutrition initiatives.

Q: In the watchdog role, how do you compete against other sweeteners, like high fructose corn syrup (HFCS) that has become ubiquitous in America’s foods and beverages over the last two decades?

A: We are into a consumer education effort. In 2004, we did a Gallup survey and asked people just to tell us what sweeteners they were aware of, and in the top six sweeteners, HFCS was not mentioned.

We have worked hard on educating consumers that the major soft drinks do not have sugar in them and four years later, in 2008, we asked consumers the same question about sweeteners and up to 88 percent are now aware of HFCS.

The next question is: If it has HFCS, what percentage of consumers is going to purchase the product now? Consumers have responded and roughly 63 percent of consumers said that if they were aware it had HFCS in it, they would probably not purchase the product. So, we have come a long way in a relatively short period of time.

Consumers are the ultimate customer for the sugar industry and we want them to feel good about the taste, safety and caloric value of sugar. And we want consumers to feel good about continuing to use sugar or coming back to sugar.

For access online to more information relating to The Sugar Association, sugar or educational information relating to sugar, please access: www.sugar.org.