More than 1500 sugar cookies baked with SteviaCane were the hit of the Institute of Food Technologists (IFT) food expo in Chicago.

Talk about a high-profile taste test – the Institute of Food Technologists’ (IFT) food expo. It’s where prototype products are sampled by thousands of food experts who turn out for the annual event.

More than 1,500 sugar cookies made with the new sweetener called “Steviacane™” – a product made from sugar and stevia – were served up there recently “raising some eyebrows and generating a lot of curiosity,” says Darrell L. Gerdes, manager of research and new product development for Imperial Sugar Company (ISC).

Sugar cookies served at Institute of Food Technologists (IFT) food expo were the receipt of Joetta Gerdes, mother of Darrell L. Gerdes, manager of research and new product development for Imperial.

With the introduction of Steviacane, Natural Sweet Ventures LLC  – a joint venture formed by Imperial Sugar and PureCircle this year – is tapping into consumers’ and food manufacturers’ desire for a natural sweetener that uses less sugar, but that doesn’t impact finished product flavor.

Representatives from both companies were there to see and hear firsthand reactions to the Steviacane  “sugar” cookies, which were based on a recipe by Gerdes’ mom, Joetta Gerdes.

“We saw a strong, positive reaction to the idea of having a sugar product that could help our customers lower sugar usage and calories in their existing products,” reports Gerdes, a Ph.D. with a taking-it-to-the-streets approach when it comes to engaging consumers.

Jordi Ferre, corporate vice president of sales and marketing for PureCircle USA, says those who tasted the cookies were pleasantly surprised. A common response was: “You don’t expect to have a great-tasting cookie after taking 50 percent of the sugar out.”

Steviacane is produced through a patented process in which cane sugar and high-purity stevia, a sweetener derived from the leaves of the Stevia plant, are combined into an easy-to-use granulated product.

According to Jason Hecker, vice president of global marketing for PureCircle Limited, stevia sweetener products are gaining momentum in the market as major multinational companies and big brands continue to drive up awareness.

“With increased interest in stevia-based products and a shift in the market to sugar, Steviacane comes along at the right time, combining the best of the two natural sweeteners,” says Hecker. “Steviacane will fill a real need, offering the taste of real sugar – but with fewer calories – using our proprietary formulation.”

Gerdes has been leading the development of the venture’s first product for the last six months. The process has required everything from an examination of stevia and sugar molecules, to running taste panels, to conducting a 72-hour commercial-scale test run of the product in the refinery.

“This is a significant step forward for the sweetener industry,” Gerdes believes. “This has been the most exciting and challenging product-development project I have been involved with in my 25-plus year food industry career. It was quite a treat to see the positive and supportive reactions of hundreds of food scientists at the food expo.”

Natural Sweet Ventures plans to do a limited-distribution test later this year that involves selling the packaged product in one of Imperial Sugar’s strategic retail partners.

Gerdes hints that conference attendees in various industries peripheral to food processing presented some unique opportunities going forward.

Ferre sums up his impressions, saying: “Widespread interest in using a natural sweetener like stevia with sugar to reduce calories continues to be very big. Steviacane offers a perfect solution.”

About 30 minutes into the film, the hapless heroine, June – played by Cameron Diaz – is fleeing from Tom Cruise, who plays a rogue spy named Roy. As Diaz is running for her life, she jumps on a bus that displays a Wholesome Sweeteners’ ad on the back.

Happenstance?

Not hardly, says Pauline McKee, vice president of marketing for the company, which specializes in Fair Trade Certified™ organic and natural sweeteners.

“I have worked with a company called Motion Picture Magic for approximately five years,” she says.
“We responded to a request from the film producers of ‘Knight and Day’ just over two years ago.”

McKee says the California-based company has been very successful in securing Wholesome Sweeteners’ product placements in feature films, such as “Bedtime Stories” with Adam Sandler, and on TV shows, including “Two and a Half Men” and “Entourage.”

“This has been a great partnership through which we introduce stars, cast and crew to our products and also place them on the set in appropriate scenes during shooting,” she says.

It’s all part of the big-picture marketing strategy for this joint venture between Imperial Sugar, one of the largest U.S. sugar companies, and Edward Billington & Son, one of the UK’s largest, privately owned companies with products and services in the food and agriculture sectors.
Adds McKee: “We are very excited that the Wholesome Sweeteners’ bus banner advertisement survived final editing and cut.”

It just goes to show. You can have more than one thing that’s naturally wholesome and good in a cloak-and-dagger plot line. Move over Cameron Diaz.

Dudley (Dutch) J Melancon, Jr., Packaging Superintendent at the Gramercy, La refinery, inspects the new Imperial Sugar railcars before loading with sugar.

For 14 years, Don Gilbert has dreamed of seeing Imperial Sugar Company (ISC) railcars painted a bright “Imperial blue” and sporting the company’s logo. His dream has finally true – along with some new features for customers, too.

Thirty new bulk railcars, manufactured by Trinity Rail Industries, are on their way to the Gramercy, La., and Port Wentworth, Ga., refineries, where they’ll be used for transporting refined sugar by rail to customers. Unlike in years past, this batch of railcars is a distinctive bright blue, not grey, and each has its own Imperial Sugar crown.

“The customer will see these cars arrive at their facility, and they’ll know exactly who it is,” says Gilbert, the company’s director of commodities management and logistics. “The cars are recognizable and memorable.”

Don Gilbert, director of commodities management and logistics for Imperial Sugar.

Beyond the blue finish, which was carefully matched to ISC’s logo, the railcars have features important to many customers receiving bulk products by rail.

For example, a “hatch-and-hatch” system on top of each railcar allows for two openings, one small and one large. When loading a railcar, Imperial can use the smaller opening, reducing the possibility of contamination.

Stainless steel gates on the bottom of the railcars, as well as food-grade lining inside of them, allow the transported sugar to quickly empty out. Those features make it easier for a customer, after receiving a car full of refined sugar, to open the gate and unload.
The number of railcars in Imperial Sugar’s fleet is now just under 600. As the company expands its fleet, Gilbert says, every new railcar will be built with customer-friendly features such as the hatch-and-hatch system, food-grade lining and stainless steel gate.

And, he hopes, they’ll be painted in that same distinctive blue.

Consumers continue to clamor for foods and drinks sweetened with all-natural sugar. Products such as Heinz and Hunt’s ketchup, Pepsi Throwback, Snapple, Gatorade, and Wheat Thins are just a few of the household names to answer the call. Click here for a current list.

Andy Briscoe, President & CEO, The Sugar Association.

Starbucks, one of the nation’s biggest restaurant chains, summed up its decision to use sugar in its food products: “We heard loud and clear from our customers that they want food, when they purchase food at Starbucks, to be made of high quality ingredients and from simple recipes.”

Of course, those same consumers would probably be fuming if many of these same manufacturers scrapped all-natural sugar and replaced it with artificial or man-made sweeteners, such as neotame, sorbitol, and polydextrose.

A recent Harris Interactive poll found that 52 percent of parents make a conscious effort to avoid artificial sweeteners, yet few are actually able to identify common sweeteners used in food products.

With such overwhelming evidence that consumers want natural products like sugar, you might think a move to artificials would never happen. Think again.

The Dietary Guidelines for Americans are currently being revised, and the federal government is under pressure to recommend limiting Americans’ sugar intake to as little as possible. If this happens, manufacturers would be left with little recourse but to reformulate their recipes.

And if they reformulate, many consumers may not even realize it.

When shown the ingredient label of a popular children’s product, given to dehydrated infants, only four percent of parents could identify all the sweeteners. About one in seven (13 percent) parents couldn’t identify any of the four sweeteners used.

Considering 87 percent of parents say the sweetener used in a product is at least somewhat important to them when making food decisions for their kids, they have a desire and right to know what sweeteners they are feeding their family.

The Sugar Association has petitioned the Food and Drug Administration to follow Canada’s lead and clear up consumer confusion with front-of-package labeling for artificial sweeteners. For nearly five years, this petition has been tangled in government red tape while new sweeteners come on the market each year and some even change their names to be less recognizable.

Andy Briscoe, President and CEO of the Sugar Association said, “We know consumers are confused by the more than 25 sweeteners being used in the U.S. market. Consumers have a right to know what is in their food, and the current FDA labeling standards aren’t working.”

We’re confident that when given all the facts, Americans will make the same choice people have made for more than 2,000 years: sugar.

Major customers Sara Lee Bakery and Coca-Cola, parent company to Minute Maid, recently conducted two such site audits at Imperial Sugar Company’s Port Wentworth refinery, where they were met by Tom Wilson, technical services manager.

Tom Wilson, technical services manager, listens carefully to customer questions during an audit.

Because the refinery was essentially shuttered for more than a year, Wilson explains, big customers view it now as a new facility.

“A lot of people, including Coke and Sara Lee, want to see the changes,” says Wilson. “We’ve changed dramatically what our facility looks like, how we do things and the equipment we do it on.”

The audit process began with a 20- to 30-page questionnaire, in which the manufacturer first explains what he’ll be looking at and then asks about a supplier’s HACCP (Hazard Analysis and Critical Control Points) program. “It’s one of the programs that most customers are interested in,” Wilson says. “It’s one way we can show we’re not posing a health hazard.”

Provides a Roadmap

The document provides a roadmap for Wilson, who serves as a liaison for all audits. He involves managers from shipping, human resources, operations and production to look through the document and prepare for what comes next – the site visit by the customer.

Now, smaller customers may be satisfied once a supplier successfully completes a detailed audit questionnaire. Larger ones, however, will ask to send an auditor to tour and inspect the site. Since the reopening of the Port Wentworth refinery, says Wilson, he has walked roughly 60 different customers through their audits.

What exactly do customers look for during an audit, which typically lasts a day or two?

They start by reviewing documentation – what safety programs are in place, who does what and when. Then, the touring group – Wilson, an ISC sales representative and the customer – walk the refinery to observe associates on production lines performing their jobs.

“Customers will either say, ‘It’s supposed to happen like this. I saw it happen, it matched the description, so I’m OK.’ Or, ‘It didn’t match, so explain to me why,’” Wilson says.

To get a complete picture of a facility’s operation, an auditor will view a process at various times. “If we say a process happens every two hours, an auditor will check his watch so he can go back and see whether it happens again two hours from now.”

Operators Must Know

An auditor also may engage directly with the operators in the refinery, asking, “Where is your critical control point? What does HACCP stand? What are you monitoring?”

Says Wilson, “If an operator can’t answer the questions, the auditor knows right away that here’s an issue.”

Anyone in the role of auditor typically has a sharp eye and a background in food science, chemistry or engineering. And, he typically wants to see more than a snapshot of a single day. He wants to get an historical perspective of the operations. .

“He may thumb through the past six months of documentation and single out a particular day when the operator wrote down a note about something unusual. That means we should have created a corresponding corrective action plan,” Wilson says. That’s a strand for the auditor to follow to the end.

In one case, an ISC operator noted that a metal detector wasn’t working correctly. The “corrective action” was calling someone in the electrical department, who determined the power supply was faulty. To fix the problem, an engineer installed a new power supply, then restarted the equipment and verified the detector was working by running tests.

“We had documented that process, so the auditor was satisfied,” says Wilson.

The rigor is important, he explains. As one major customer told him, “If we’re buying from you, and you do something wrong, by default, we’re an accomplice.”

After much documentation and many hours of work, the Port Wentworth refinery has passed its Sara Lee and Coca-Cola audits with flying colors, meaning “let’s start talking about what we can provide you, delivery schedules and pricing,” says Wilson.

“It means we can now get back to the normal course of business and supply two of our major customers.”

PureCircle is working with Imperial Sugar Company through a joint venture – Natural Sweet Ventures, L.L.C. – to develop stevia – cane sugar products in the U.S.

PureCircle’s high purity SG95 product is a further example of the company’s leadership in innovation. Along with seven previously approved steviol glycosides, SG95 includes two new steviol glycosides, Rebaudioside D and Rebaudioside F, both of which are receiving GRAS No Objection for the first time.

The new high purity sweetener delivers great taste and consistency, as well as pricing well below sugar. The product is suited for applications formulated with both sugar and SG95 to achieve a low cost solution to partial sugar and calorie reduction. Together with PureCircle’s successful high purity Reb A 97, SG95 will provide customers with an expanded range of options to improve products across their portfolios.

With GRAS affirmation, PureCircle is prepared for immediate commercialization of SG95.
Magomet Malsagov, CEO and Managing Director of PureCircle, stated “The launch of SG95 is a very exciting development for PureCircle in the United States with considerable future potential in global markets. Expanded use of sweet glycosides from the stevia plant provides both formulation and economic benefits to our customers.

“PureCircle’s Reb A 97 continues to play a major role in the company’s portfolio, particularly as investments yield continued efficiencies that will be shared with customers. Now, SG95 will provide an additional compelling product today in many applications.”

Kathy Gonzalez has become Imperial's newest Certified Safety Professional® (CSP). This premier credential certifies they meet the highest national and international standards for health and safety in the workplace.

When it comes to ensuring worker safety, Kathy Gonzalez gets right to the point.

“If you boil it down, my role is to make sure that the way the people come into the plant is the way they leave,” says Gonzalez, environmental health and safety (EHS) manager at Imperial Sugar Company’s (ISC) refinery in Gramercy, La. There, she’s responsible for the welfare of co-workers on the job.

With her guardian mindset, she’s become the company’s newest Certified Safety Professional® (CSP). This premier credential for professionals like Gonzalez certifies they meet the highest national and international standards for health and safety in the workplace.

Meeting these exacting standards means working with managers, supervisors, machine operators, mechanics and others to make sure all equipment is running properly – without any safety concerns. Gonzalez also is an active participant in the Imperial Sugar EHS cross-site safety community, which works together to develop and implement safety policies, training and practices needed to make this happen.

“My biggest job is to identify potential hazards and mitigate the risks people take when interacting with machinery or other materials,” says Gonzalez, who’s worked for ISC for two years.

She likens her position as safety head to a conductor of an orchestra. In this case, “all they guys in the field are the ones who play the instruments. I provide and conduct the musical score.”

The CSP certification is recognized by safety and health organizations worldwide and is similar to an accountant having a CPA credential. Requirements for certification include an undergraduate degree, several years of professional safety experience and the passing of a two-part, nine-hour exam.

Gonzalez estimates she studied about 150 hours for both parts of the CSP exam. “It’s definitely put me on top of my game,” she says. “It’s provided a good refresher on processes and theories that can be applied to various aspects of my work.”

According to Gonzalez, safety awareness at the Gramercy refinery is strong. She credits success to everyone’s commitment and participation.

Gonzalez brings more than two decades of safety and health experience to Imperial Sugar, where she oversees the work of two staff members, a nurse, a professional firefighter, fire protection mechanics, security and dust mitigation cleaners.

Previously, she worked as an EHS manager for Remy International, a major manufacturer of hybrid motors, starters and alternators, as well as at a major printing company.

“One person does not make a safety department,” Gonzalez likes to say. “I have never worked at a place with employees as willing as Imperial’s to embrace safety. We’re a tight-knit team.”

Eric Terry, char house operator in Imperial Sugar Company’s Port Wentworth refinery, returned to work after being stationed in the Afghan city of Jalalabad with the U.S. Army.

Today, Eric Terry works as a char house operator in Imperial Sugar Company’s Port Wentworth refinery. This time last year, he was in the Afghan city of Jalalabad, serving in the U.S. Army as a gunner – one of the soldiers who rides on top of a tank or Humvee, manning a .50-caliber or M240B machine gun.

“I was proficient with the really big guns,” Terry says, “so they put me on that job.”

Riding in a Humvee made him a regular target for roadside bomb attacks, so he feels “fortunate to make it back.” In the same breath, though, he humbly points out that he was simply doing his job in Afghanistan – just like he’s doing his job here.

His military service began in 2005, when he joined the 48th Infantry Brigade of the Georgia National Guard. At the time, he felt he “wanted some direction and to be a part of something.” He entered boot camp for 18 weeks at Fort Sill, Oklahoma, which was every bit as rigorous as people say: “You pretty much train from 4 a.m. when you wake up, until two hours before you bed down. Every day, for 18 weeks.”

With his training complete, “you go back to the civilian world to do your job and take care of your family,” he explains. His involvement with the National Guard was scaled back to training once a month during the year, with a two-week training stint during the summer.

And then, his unit was called up for active duty.

Terry left Savannah in January 2009 to spend six months in training before being deployed to Jalalabad for 10 months. It meant leaving his wife and baby boy, Bryson, behind. “I missed his first steps, his first words –- everything,” he says.

Terry rides on top of a tank or Humvee, manning a .50-caliber or M240B machine gun, similar to this military photo of an Afghan patrol.

Deployment is tough on a family, but so is the transition when a soldier returns. When he first returned home in April 2010, he spent a lot of time with his son to recapture “that bond,” he says. For the months that Terry was gone, he and his wife had told Bryson that Daddy was at work.

Coming home meant returning to work for Imperial Sugar Company – where he had been employed for the two years before deploying. When Terry returned to Savannah, the company “put me where they needed me,” says Terry – the char house. “My job at Imperial is really important to me, because it helps me support people who were supporting me while I was in Afghanistan.”

He has nothing but positive words for his co-workers, who have told him how much they value his brave service in Afghanistan. And the experience of serving in the military has made him even more thankful for and aware of what he has.

“It helps me appreciate what I have back home more,” he says. “As a man, I think I’m a little more grown-up than I was before.”

Terry will be with the National Guard until next year. He knows there is a chance he’ll be called up for active duty again. For now, though, he isn’t thinking about it. He’s too busy adjusting to his new role in the char house and playing toy trains with Bryson.

Darrell Gerdes, manager of research and new product development for Imperial Sugar Company, inspects a sugar cookie made with SteviaCane.

Like a modern-day Columbo, Darrell Gerdes, manager of research and new product development for Imperial Sugar Company (ISC), spends much of his time troubleshooting, coming up with new ideas and examining the evidence until something “clicks.”

A case in point: Gerdes and an ISC team recently worked with a large commercial customer on a new sugar glaze for the company’s famed glazed doughnuts. The team had not yet gotten the viscosity of the glaze to perform the way they wanted.

“The glaze was giving us a 90 percent performance, but I’m a perfectionist scientist who expects 100 percent performance,” says Gerdes. “We were struggling to figure out why this particular product wasn’t working perfectly. We had changed the formulation, changed the application method and temperature – all sorts of things. It just wasn’t good enough.”

Suddenly, an idea popped into his head: “I thought about the gums in the product, and realized they needed a 24-hour time frame to do their stuff perfectly.” That’s when Gerdes decided to spend three days with the customer, running a test that involved making the glaze, letting it rest for a day, and then applying it to the doughnuts.

“It worked like a champ,” he says.

It’s this sort of scenario that casts Gerdes as a detective of sorts. He says, half-jokingly, “It’s like CSI, except with sugar and sweeteners.”

As a student at Texas A&M, Gerdes originally wanted to be a pediatrician, but soon found himself drawn to food science. After earning his Master’s degree and PhD in food science, he worked as a professor at universities in Texas, Louisiana and California, teaching students and running research centers that conducted research projects for food companies. Eventually, one of those clients lured him to the corporate world.

Gerdes discusses tests on SteviaCane with Imperial's analytical chemist William Kienzle.

After stints at Parrot-Ice and Riviana Foods, Gerdes landed at Imperial Sugar in June 2009. Arriving at the Sugar Land, Texas, headquarters, he recalled touring the site as a Boy Scout and later learning how to drive on Highway 90A, which runs in front of the corporate offices.

What he loves about his role at Imperial Sugar is “creating new stuff and solving problems.” A typical week involves everything from working on new products, to scouring the Internet to read up on the latest food industry trends, to answering questions from customers and consumers.

He says he has three big goals for the year:
One is to launch Steviacane™, a product made from sugar and stevia.

The second is to relaunch Baker’s Supreme with revamped packaging.

And, the third is to develop a tool for online market research, which will be a first foray for Imperial Sugar. “Called a ‘concept screener,’ the online survey will allow us to target consumers by demographic and region and say, ‘Here are our ideas for new products. What do you think?’”

By year-end, Gerdes expects to have targeted market research to help guide him, as well as new ISC products lining retail shelves. He says, “One-hundred-percent performance – that’s what success looks like to me.”

“We want to move beyond vendor to valued partner,” said Lucas, national sales director, industrial channel, at Imperial. “That means establishing deeper, multi-tier customer relationships from a marketing and R&D perspective.”
For Lucas, being a valued partner will require Imperial to position itself as a sweetener solutions company – one that not only provides sugar, but also works closely with its customers to develop innovative sweetener products.

Lucas said that when introducing a new product to customers, Imperial will take extra steps to help them determine how to best use and market the product and ensure its success.

Joe Lucas, national sales director, industrial channel, at Imperial Sugar.

“We will be working hand-in-hand with the Imperial product development team and our customers,” said Lucas. “The team will not only talk to our customers’ R&D people, but also to their marketing groups to discuss at length the features, benefits and applications of our sweeteners at a more technical level.”

Growing the company’s presence throughout North America and maximizing value creation from its joint ventures and alliances – an Imperial core business strategy – will be integral to Lucas’ consultative sales approach. Those joint ventures include Comercializadora Santos Imperial, a sugar producer based in Monterrey, Mexico, and Natural Sweet Ventures, which is developing Stevia-based sweetening products.

Sugar production in Mexico will play a bigger role when Imperial’s domestic production for industrial customers shifts solely to its Port Wentworth, Ga., refinery next year. Also, new stevia-based products will help establish a broader base for Imperial’s sweetening solutions.

Lucas pointed to a meeting with a major food manufacturer at the 2010 International Sweetener Colloquium to show how Imperial can use these ventures to the customer’s advantage.

There, he and Imperial CEO and President John Sheptor shared with the customer how stevia/cane sugar blended sweeteners could be used in its products to leverage the benefits of sugar as well as caloric reduction. They also discussed Imperial’s ability to supply sugar in Mexico, which is very important to this company because it has a large manufacturing operation in Monterrey.

“Prior to that meeting, we’d be looked at only as a supplier who shipped the customer sugar out of our two U.S. plants,” said Lucas. “By the time we were finished, they saw us as a sweetener solutions provider – not only in the U.S., but also in Mexico. In other words, we were no longer perceived as just a cane sugar provider.”

Discussing the challenges and opportunities ahead, Lucas said Imperial is very focused on service in anticipation of its move to a single, U.S. plant operation for industrial customers. This change will occur once Louisiana Sugar Refining – a joint venture in which Imperial is one-third owner – opens its large new plant in Gramercy, La.

Raw sugar at Imperial Sugar's Gramercy refinery.

Imperial plans to place a bulk transfer station in Monterrey as early as the fall to expedite the shipping of sugar across the border and help fill the gap. “We’re fully anticipating that our operations in Mexico and the increased capacity of our Port Wentworth refinery will fill the Southwest market with the industrial volume we have in Gramercy,” said Lucas. “We are not abandoning this market at all.”

According to Lucas, service is already improving and customers are highly impressed with the newly modernized Port Wentworth facility.

Recently, about 20 customers got a first-hand look at the rebuilt plant during an Imperial combustible dust seminar. One customer said: “For six years, I’ve been responsible for combustible dust and safety at our company’s facility. I came in thinking I knew everything and was prepared to be bored for two days. After the first five minutes of a presentation before the actual tour, I knew I was wrong.”

Lucas believes the seminar and tour positioned Imperial as a strong partner for its customers. He said customers walked away with a new appreciation for Imperial’s dedication to safety and operational excellence, as well as for its openness in sharing all it had learned from the explosion that occurred there in early 2008.

“We’re really excited about the opportunity in front of us. It’s all driving toward the idea that we’re not just a sugar company, we’re a sweetener solutions company,” said Lucas. “When customers think of sweeteners, we believe they’ll think of Imperial first.”

Before joining Imperial, Lucas worked for Barry Callebaut, the world’s leading manufacturer of high-quality cocoa, chocolate and confectionery products.

Pat Henneberry, senior vice president of commodities for Imperial Sugar Company.

Even with a lot of market changes worldwide, the outlook for raw sugar reflects “a relatively tight supply and demand,” says Pat Henneberry, senior vice president of commodities for Imperial Sugar Company.

Based on the USDA’s July report for World Agricultural Supply and Demand Estimates (WASDE), Henneberry says: “We’re viewing the market as relatively firm for the rest of this fiscal year, ending in September.

“And the beginning of the succeeding year should also be firm because quota supplies won’t become readily available until the new crops in Central America that start in November and December.”

WASDE is the monthly report by the Department of Agriculture about the supply and demand of major domestic and foreign crops and U.S. livestock.

To hear more from Henneberry about the July WASDE report, please view this video.

The July 2010 WASDE report from USDA showed an 11.8 % ending stocks/use ratio for 2009-10 and a 9.0 % ending stocks/use ratio form 2010-11. If not for the 270,000 tons of additional imports as per the TRQ increase, the ending stocks/use ratio for 2009-10 would have dropped to 9.3 % from the 10.7 % in the June report.

Looking at 2009-10, the beet crop estimate was reduced by 50,000 tons due to lower than expected output from the old crop in May. The estimate of Florida production was increased by 8,000 tons. On the import front, the USDA added 270,000 tons of TRQ, assuming a 30,000 shortfall on the increase quantity and a 133,000 ton shortfall overall. This was partially offset by an 110,000 ton reduction in the estimate of Mexican imports from 540,000 to 430,000 based on the pace of imports to date (302,277 tons through the end of May). The impressive tail on the Mexican crop and related dip in prices will allow for at least a couple of cargoes of estandar to be shipped, and the new estimate may well prove a bit on the low side when all is said and done. On balance, the total supply was thus increased by 118,000 tons to 12.033 million tons. One or two high tier raws cargoes have already been landed in the US, suggesting that the USDA’s high tier import estimate of 75,000 tons for 2009-10 is too low.

Frank Jenkins of The Jenkins Sugar Group.

Somewhat surprisingly, the demand side of the ledger was left alone. Demand for 2009-10 is thus remains 1.12 % down from 2008-09. The April Sweetener market Data report (displayed below) shows US deliveries for human us and products for re-export up 7.4 %, led by the bottling sector which is up a staggering 29.3 % year-on-year. For 2010-11, the USDA shows US food use declining by a further ½ percent. If each year showed an actual increase of 2.0 % this would amount to nearly 600,000 tons of demand over the 24 months. 2010-11 ending stocks would be 355,000 tons and the ending stocks/use ratio would be 3.2 %.

For 2010-11, the beet crop estimate was increased by 80,000 tons to 4.710 million tons and the Texas cane crop estimate was reduced by 10,000 tons to 140,000 tons. Thus 2010-11 ending stocks are estimated at 952,000 tons, or 9.0 % of use.

The Mexican estimate is beginning to resemble a parlor trick, where no matter which or how many components are changed, the ending stocks figure never changes. In the most recent iteration, production for 2009-10 was increased by 35,000 tons, imports decrease by 135,000 and exports reduced by 100,000 and – voila! – ending stocks are unchanged at 868,000 tons. (Last month production was increased by 185,000 tons, neatly offset by a 15,000 ton reduction in imports and a 170,000 ton increase in domestic consumption, keeping the 868,000 tons ending stock figure intact.) We do not see how Mexico will bridge to the new crop without additional imports. The import number in today’s report assumes a few hundred thousand tonnes of additional imports before the end of September, and the export number is now a bit too low. Thus, it appears that Mexico will have only about six week’s worth of stocks on September 30th, roughly eight to 10 weeks before any meaningful new crop production is available. This will leave Mexico in the unenviable position of trying to import refined sugar ahead of the new crop, alongside Thailand, the Philippines and the Dominican Republic in addition to the usual suspects such as Pakistan, Bangladesh and Iraq.

We believe that the two quota increases seen recently have put the market on a better footing, but it is clear that the market is still extremely tight. Two simple measure of this are that the 2010-11 beginning stocks are estimated to be 231,000 tons lower than the 2009-10 carry-in – a stock situation that provided for all of the angst, gnashing of teeth and historically unprecedented pricing seen in the past six months. Secondly, in our update following the May WASDE report, we posed the question “If an 11.6 % stocks/use ratio in the April WASDE justified a 200,000 ton quota increase, does an 11.6 % stocks/use ratio in May call for another 200,000 tonne increase?” It turned out that the 10.7 % ratio in the June report called for a 300,000 ton increase, so the math is pretty consistent. So – what does the 11.8 % ratio in today’s report indicate? We doubt we will hear from the USDA again this year, aside from perhaps an early 2010-11 TRQ announcement, and feel the market will be perilously tight as a result – even if the dubious use estimate in today’s report proves accurate.

It is easy to get used to looking at the current S&D and be lulled into a false sense of security. Surely 11.8 % is more accommodating than 10.7 %. Should the 11.8 % ending stocks/use ratio prove accurate, it would be unprecedented. The average ending stocks/use ratio for the past decade is 16.89 %. The difference is roughly 550,000 tons of inventory.

Despite the very welcomed and skillfully allocated quota increases, we still see the market as undersupplied through October and believe that additional high tier imports will be needed in August and/or September to make ends meet. The stage is set to ensure that the 2010-11 futures positions will hold to a 27.00 to 30.00 range and that refined prices will hold in the upper 30 cent range, if not the recently announce 43.00 rate.

Read The Jenkins Sugar Group online.

John Sheptor, CEO and Chairman of Imperial Sugar.

Imperial Sugar Company’s (ISC) settlement with the Occupational Safety & Health Administration (OSHA) now positions the company to focus even more on improving workplace safety and driving its best practices across the food-processing industry worldwide.

“Imperial Sugar is pleased to resolve the citations,” said CEO and President John Sheptor. “Imperial agreed to the terms with OSHA in order to settle these matters expeditiously and amicably, and to allow us to better concentrate our resources toward not only enhancing the safety of our own facilities, but also to assist the sugar industry as a whole in addressing workplace hazards.”

Imperial Sugar was cited by OSHA in July 2008 for alleged safety violations at its Port Wentworth and Gramercy, La., facilities with a combined proposed penalty totaling $8.7 million.

As ISC rebuilt its Port Wentworth operations after a deadly explosion and fire, Sheptor led the company in creating an industry model for better worker safety, improved food-quality processes and greater manufacturing efficiencies.

Since the OSHA citations were issued, Imperial Sugar has worked with leading experts to collect and develop, through testing and other research efforts, information about the hazards of combustible dust specific to the sugar industry.

Ronald Allen, Sr. Director of Environmental Health and Safety

Sheptor noted: “Imperial’s extensive studies have guided us in implementing new hazard controls as we rebuilt our Port Wentworth facility as well as our existing facility in Gramercy.”

Ron Allen, senior director of environmental health and safety, is among the hundreds of leaders and employees at ISC’s refineries in Port Wentworth and Gramercy who’ve worked side-by-side to develop new standards and raise performance levels – benefiting the company and the sugar industry alike.

Allen, who also is the company’s chief safety officer, says Imperial Sugar’s efforts and solutions over the past couple of years have involved several areas, including:

• Improved engineering controls: ISC conducted thorough studies comparing its operations against National Fire Protection Association Standards – done with the support of globally recognized experts in the field of combustible dust.
• Stronger administrative controls: The company introduced new housekeeping procedures, as well as preventative maintenance, to ensure that conditions don’t develop that could lead to a combustible dust explosion.
• Rigorous employee training: Imperial Sugar developed professionally recognized, computer-based training modules on combustible dust, which didn’t exist previously.

“We have learned much from our experts and our own studies regarding combustible dust, and we are sharing our knowledge throughout the industry to help others to be aware of the hazards of combustible dust,” Sheptor says.

Port Wentworth silo relief panels.

The results of ISC’s research and initiatives continue to be shared with global sugar manufacturers and trade associations, as well as with ISC customers – many of whom handle combustible food materials in their own business.

Allen is quick to point how Imperial Sugar collaborated with OSHA officials in striving to raise industry safety standards for manufacturers by promoting a new combustible dust standard for OSHA, along with spreading the word through public forums for improvements.

Sheptor commended OSHA for its dedication to worker safety, and reiterated Imperial Sugar’s commitment to adhering to and exceeding its obligations under the OSH Act. “We are working diligently to become our industry leader in workplace safety.”

Reinforced packaging walls at Gramercy plant.

Reflecting on everyone’s dedication and diligence, Allen says: “When we do our work, often times it’s really in memory in those who lost their lives and in our commitment to not allow that to happen again.

“So, the progress we’ve made at Imperial is, in a large part, a tribute to the memories of whose lives were lost or were injured.”

Architectural rendering of the new Family Respite Care Center by Hussey, Gay, Bell, and DeYoung.

The new Family Respite Care Center will serve family members of trauma victims and critically ill patients, offering them overnight accommodations and other services.

The new facility is “the vision of Rusty and Coren Ross,” whose daughter, Jennifer, died in 2006, according to the medical center. Imperial Sugar’s contribution is part of $500,000 being raised for the project.

“Memorial University Medical Center provided for our employees in a time of urgent need,” says George Muller, vice president of administration at Imperial Sugar. “We want to give back to help ease the burden of those who will come here in the future.”

Donald Farmer, an Imperial Sugar employee injured in the explosion, spoke at a groundbreaking ceremony. Farmer told WSAV TV: “I survived a very horrendous accident, and every day, I thank the Lord for me being here.

“When I came through here, they treated me with care. Everybody seemed to know exactly what they were doing.”

Farmer said he is pleased to know that families using the new respite center will be well taken care of – just as loved ones are who undergo treatment at the medical facility.

Memorial University Medical Center is a 530-bed, academic medical facility that serves a 35-county area in southeast Georgia and southern South Carolina, offering a Level 1 trauma center.

The 4,000-square-foot expansion project will include a kitchen, dining area, washer/dryer, showers and 10 private rooms. It is expected to be finished in several months.

Watch the WSAV news segment by clicking here.