This is the sixth year that Go Nuts has had a presence at this annual shoppers’ paradise that officially kicks-off the holiday season for many Houstonians. At this year Market, over 323 national and international merchants were present, carefully selected for their unique offerings, including home décor, gourmet food, garden, clothing, sporting gifts, novelties, accessories and more. It’s estimated that more than 70,000 people attended this year’s market. For those countless shoppers seeking gifts of food, Go Nuts offered truly delicious tasting treats.

According to Kristy, they used approximately 600 pounds of nuts, including pecans, cashews and almonds, and 200 pounds of Imperial Sugar to prepare enough of their cinnamon-glazed nuts to meet the anticipated demand of shoppers.

“We were excited to have Imperial Sugar branding in our booth at this year’s Nutcracker Market,” said Kristy. “It was important to make our customers aware that our nuts are only made with the finest quality ingredients, which includes Imperial Sugar.”

Kristy adds that many of their customers at the Nutcracker Market are repeat customers who eagerly await the annual shopping mecca for the opportunity to purchase the cinnamon-glazed nuts. She believes that branding the booth and packaging with Imperial Sugar’s logo has increased their visibility at the Market.

All proceeds from the Market benefit Houston Ballet Foundation, Houston Ballet’s Ben Stevenson Academy and its scholarship funds. This year’s Market theme was “Toy Town Texas.”

Kristy points out that they will also be at the Houston Live Stock Show and Rodeo next March, so anyone that couldn’t come out to the Market has a second chance to “Go Nuts.”

Like ISC, Accredo is based in Sugar Land, Texas and is believed to be the first flexible packaging manufacturing facility in the U.S. granted LEED® Silver certification by the U.S. Green Building Council.

LEED® promotes a whole building approach to sustainability by recognizing performance in five key areas of human and environmental health:
1. Sustainable site development
2. Water savings
3. Energy efficiency
4. Material selection
5. Indoor environmental quality

According to Rex Varn, executive vice president of Accredo Packaging, its state-of-the-art flexible packaging converting plant uses 100 percent wind-generated electrical power as well as processes designed to eliminate waste and minimize carbon emissions during the production process. Building materials were sourced locally, and recycled materials were used whenever possible. As a result, everything produced at the facility has a greatly reduced carbon footprint, even when manufactured to the same specifications as at conventional plants.

Furthermore, Varn points out that Accredo Packaging runs exclusively extended color gamut process printing. The proprietary ink delivery system supplies ink directly to the ten-color, 2,000 feet-per-minute printing presses, which reduces ink consumption by up to 35 percent and ink waste by up to 95 percent. Similarly, solvent usage is also significantly reduced.

“We are excited that Imperial Sugar Company has partnered with us to further its goal of lowering the environmental impact of its packaging while producing competitively priced offerings,” said Varn. He added, “Our sustainability efforts feed directly into our customer’s Corporate Social Responsibility objectives.”

Accredo will produce packaging for any ISC product that requires a pouch or poly bag. This will include the new 2-pound pouch for Steviacane® that is set to launch later this year, which will provide consumers with more ease of use.

Happy Halloween Mansion at Children's Museum of Houston (Photo credit: Children's Museum of Houston)

Thanks in part to Imperial Sugar Company (ISC), children in the Houston area are celebrating two spooky weeks of trick-or-treating, costume wearing and hair-raising fun. Giant spiders, creepy critters, flying ghosts and wicked bats welcome the children to a spellbinding adventure as the Children’s Museum of Houston (CMH) magically morphs into the Happy Halloween Mansion from Oct. 18 through the 31.

ISC is once again the sponsor of the Happy Halloween Mansion at CMH. As part of its commitment to organizations that create and promote learning opportunities for children, the company has been a proud supporter of CMH for several years. Earlier this year, ISC was the presenting sponsor for Lemonade Day in Houston, a community-wide educational initiative designed to teach children how to start own and operate their own business- a lemonade stand.

“We thrilled to once again be a sponsor of the Happy Halloween Mansion,” said Hyuna Lee, Senior Marketing Manager for ISC. “Halloween is such an exciting time of the year for children, so Imperial Sugar has partnered with the Children’s Museum of Houston to create an event that is both fun and instructional.”

Imperial Sugar Halloween Cookie Decorating Kit

In addition to the sponsorship, ISC donated 275 Halloween cookie decorating kits to CMH that were given to all the children attending the Halloween membership party held Oct. 23. The kits included a specially-made Imperial Sugar cookie cutter along with three-color sanding sugar, one jar of sprinkles, a whisk, a rolling pin, and a spatula.

According to Henry Yau, Public Relations and Promotions Director for CMH, the purpose is not so much to provide the traditional haunted house experience for children but to mix science with creativity and art. For instance, as part of the activities, children learn how to create their own ghoulish slime and festive ghost bubbles.

“ISC’s financial support and involvement has allowed the Children’s Museum to provide an exciting yet safe environment for children to trick-or-treat and an opportunity to learn something fun and interesting,” said Yau.

All of CMH’s exhibits possess their own Halloween theme complete with thrills and chills. There is a Spooky Street where children can nab their own bag to decorate and collect treats. Children can use iPads to capture Creepy Creatures’ Features in Pictures.

Young Princess creates slime as part of the activities at the CMH's Happy Halloween Mansion sponsored by Imperial Sugar Company (Photo credit: Children's Museum of Houston)

Visitors to the museum will pass the Extraterrestrial Tower and encounter bloodcurdling probes taking place. Children can pump blood through a heart model in the Jeepers Cardiac Creepers or compete in Vlad’s Blood Race to see if they can move blood through the body as fast as a heart does. To capture the moment, parents can snap photos of their little princess or superhero in the outdoor pumpkin patch.

As part of its partnership with CMH, Imperial Sugar is giving away tickets on its Facebook page to its fans and employees as a way to thank them for their loyalty and support.

For more information on hours and special events for the Happy Halloween Mansion, visit http://www.cmhouston.org/.

Several excited children pose during Legacy Community Health Services Back-to-School backpack giveaway

Thanks to support from Imperial Sugar Company (ISC), Legacy Community Health Services was recently able to distribute approximately 350 backpacks filled with necessary school supplies, ensuring that many deserving children in the Houston area are prepared for the new school year.

Legacy Community Health Services, a Houston-based nonprofit organization, provides low-cost or no-cost primary medical, dental and wellness treatment to low-income individuals and families. Imperial Sugar Company’s President and CEO John C. Sheptor is among several community leaders who lend their professional expertise to Legacy.

“Imperial Sugar is committed to supporting programs, that benefit the community in which we do business, especially those programs that allow youth to succeed academically and professionally,” said Sheptor.

The backpacks include all the school supplies that Houston ISD has listed as necessary for the upcoming school year, specifically for elementary school students. The backpacks are distributed to deserving children from Pre-K through 12th grade.

Volunteers assemble backpacks with required school supplies

Legacy has been doing this distribution of free school supplies for more than ten years after it was determined that there was an acute need for this program among their patients. It started when a few doctors and nurses realized that some families did not have the resources necessary to purchase school supplies for their children. From its humble beginnings providing school supplies for ten children, the program has grown, and this year was saw the largest number of backpacks distributed.

“On behalf of everyone at Legacy and our youngest patients, we want to thank Imperial Sugar from the bottom of our hearts for helping us with this critical outreach,” said Robin Susman, Senior Director of Development for Legacy. “The ability to serve a large number of children this year would not have been possible without the support of Imperial Sugar.”

Typically, the providers in the individual departments that make up the clinic – pediatrics, maternity, behavioral health and family practice – identify families that would benefit from this program.

Thank you notes written by children who received backpacks

“Our providers really know the families that they serve and are many times aware of their financial situation,” said Lizzette Tienda, Community Relations Manager for Legacy. “They do the screening and provide names of families who qualify for the program.”

In addition, to the 350 backpacks distributed at Legacy’s Southwest Clinic, approximately 25 additional backpacks were distributed to families at Legacy’s Lyons Avenue clinic, and another 25 were distributed through several churches and to an organization that supports women that are currently undergoing cancer treatment.

According to Tienda, they have already received a number of thank you cards from children who received the backpacks with school supplies.

“Many of the cards are made out of the cardboard backing from note pads and other similar material so it shows that these families have limited resources and if it weren’t for the program, many children would not be prepared for the school year,” explained Tienda. “In their cards, the children write how they are now looking forward to the school year and express their sincere thanks.”

Alejo Orvananos

Recently, John Sheptor had some assistance in carrying out his responsibilities as president and CEO of Imperial Sugar Company. On August 10, he was joined by ten year-old Alejo Orvananos from Sugar Land, Texas who served as an intern for the day.

“As part of Imperial Sugar’s ongoing support of youth initiatives, I invite a small number of students to spend a day with me at the company each year and see firsthand what it is like to be a president of large company,” said Sheptor. “At the end of the day, I hope that the intern will leave with a vision that he or she can one day lead a company.”

The first thing you notice about Alejo is his confidence and how he clearly articulates when he is speaking to you. He obviously made an impression on Sheptor who met the promising young entrepreneur at this year’s annual Lemonade Day Tasting Content that kicked off Houston’s Lemonade Day. Imperial Sugar has been a title supporter of Houston Lemonade Day since 2009. This was Alejo’s second year to participate in the program and both years this industrious youth has taken home the award for the Healthiest Lemonade at the tasting contest.

According to Sheptor, Lemonade Day provides him with a wonderful opportunity to meet talented young boys and girls who exhibit a strong sense of business and leadership qualities. It was no surprise that he was immediately impressed with Alejo’s confidence, creativity and strong business skills that were especially remarkable in someone his age. As a result, Sheptor invited the elementary school student to be part of the company’s day-long intern program.

By lunchtime, Sheptor and his young assistant had covered quite a bit of ground.

Sheptor began the day by explaining to Alejo the primary duties of the president of a company. This is something that Sheptor does with every new intern in order to give them a clear idea of what the position requires. Alejo took detailed notes of this conversation and was able to quickly list the responsibilities, which include developing and implementing a business strategy, investor relations, and ensuring the welfare of employees, among many others.

Sheptor commented that at the end of the day, he goes over the list of responsibilities once again with the intern and, together, they relate it to the day’s activities. “If each young person that interns with me can walk away from the day with a firm grasp of what a company president does, then I have instilled a valuable lesson that I firmly believe will aid them in their future career.”

Later, Alejo assisted the Imperial Sugar Company president in reviewing several design options for the cover of the company’s next annual report. When asked what is the purpose of an annual report, Alejo replied “It’s to let investors know what is going on in the company.”

As far as feedback, Alejo noted that one design was too contemporary and didn’t highlight the company’s extensive heritage. Sheptor agreed when Alejo commented that he did not like a particular photo of a model used on one of the cover options.

Sheptor also shared with Alejo some initial logo design concepts he is considering for some possible branding actions. The new logo would better reflect Imperial Sugar’s evolving portfolio of innovative sweetener solutions that go beyond sugar. The duo spent time looking over about a half dozen design options and narrowing the choices to two concepts. Alejo declared that the design he liked best invoked power and strength, which he felt suited the company’s image.

Sheptor emphasizes that the intern program is part of his company’s commitment to preparing the next generation of business leaders. He points out that most professionals who have been successful in their careers developed a vision for their future early in their lives.
Sheptor adds that Alejo has already developed an initial plan, likely due to the guidance of family members, unlike many college students that he has interviewed who have yet to establish a clear path for their career.

“Successful people start early in their lives with these types of visions so I think it is important for current business and community leaders to give early opportunities, like supporting Lemonade Day, that allow the upcoming generation of leaders to gain insight on what they can accomplish.”

John Sheptor with Alejo Orvananos

Alejo eagerly discusses how his participation in Lemonade Day has helped him gain valuable business experience in areas like product development and marketing. In addition to providing outstanding customer service, Alejo acknowledges that using Imperial Sugar was an important element of his success during Lemonade Day. Both years he used Imperial Sugar in his lemonade but this year he decided to add Imperial’s Wholesome Sweeteners blue agave syrup to enhance the flavor of the beverage and create a healthier drink that would appeal to many customers.

This year he also upgraded his stand from just a table to an actual booth with signage. Alejo proudly explains that a big part of his success this year was his location. When his first preference for a location was already taken, he took the setback as an opportunity to seek and obtain a highly visible spot in Houston’s popular Galleria shopping mall.

As for his part, Alejo gives much of the credit to his father, a financial advisor, and to his grandfather, who graduated with a master’s degree in business from Stanford University, for instilling in him an appreciation for entrepreneurship and business.

Alejo Orvananos

Although Alejo will only be entering fifth grade at Commonwealth Elementary School in Sugar Land this fall, he reveals that he has given serious thought to his potential career plans. He mentions that he may become a financial advisor like his father and because he loves math. He admits with a smile that he would also like to become a professional tennis player. He laughs proudly when he talks about winning all his matches in a recent tournament. With his drive and determination, it’s not hard to imagine his athletic skills on the court.

At the end of the day, Alejo reflects on his experience. “I was very excited to come to Imperial Sugar today,” he says. “I knew it was going to be a life changing experience and I was going to learn lessons that I will be able to use in the future.”

At the end of the month, Sheptor will welcome another young intern, a high school senior and talented musician he met through the company’s support of Virtuosi of Houston. He hopes that she gains the same benefits of the experience that Alejo received as well as 11 year-old Cristal Garcia, who served as president for the day earlier this summer.”

“What I get to do most days is fun,” Sheptor tells Alejo. He admits that his job requires hard work and making difficult decisions but he finds it enjoyable. “It is critical that you enjoy what you do in order to be truly successful.”

The number of visits to social networking sites, like Facebook and Twitter, has grown rapidly in the past few years, and social network users are sharing personal recommendations more frequently. Keenly aware of the opportunities this platform provides for growth, Imperial Sugar has seized social media to reward those fans and followers that are sharing, liking, posting, re-tweeting and generally talking about its portfolio of sweeteners.

“With an increasing number of brands now creating innovative, fresh and unique social media campaigns, it is important that our focus remains on utilizing social media as part of a wider strategy to enhance our consumer outreach,” said Hyuna Lee, Senior Marketing Manager for Imperial Sugar Company. “Through social media, we are now able to interact with our brand advocates in a way previously unavailable.”

Recently, the sweetener company had great success utilizing Facebook for a coupon giveaway to drive engagement among current fans and to capture new fans.

The company offered consumers a chance to register on Facebook to receive one of a 1,000 downloadable coupons for two of the company’s brands – Imperial Sugar and Dixie Crystals. Each coupon has a value of $4 and can be used toward the purchase of any one Imperial Sugar or Dixie Crystals product. Consumers registered by “liking” the fan page of either of the two brands and by completing a form that linked to the coupon. The response by consumers was overwhelming positive.

The 1,000 coupons per brand were gone within 90-seconds after the promotion commenced on Facebook. As a result of the promotion, both Imperial Sugar and Dixie Crystals significantly increased the number of its Facebook “likes”. In addition, the promotion was able to drive 6,000 visits to its Imperial Sugar website, with 3,000 of those visits taking place shortly after the promotion began.

Imperial Sugar also recognizes the benefits of social media as a customer service channel. It appreciates that businesses will always have to go where their customers are and right now, these customers are turning to social media. The company realizes that social media has changed customer service from being a support function to being an extension of marketing. “In the social media ecosystem, customers want to know that you’re listening and responding,” explains Sheila Turner, Customer Service Manager for Imperial Sugar Company.

Currently, Imperial Sugar is sponsoring the “Guess the Grains” contest on Facebook, asking consumers to give their best guess in estimating the number of grains of sugar in a 4-pound bag of Extra Fine Granulated Imperial Sugar and post their answers on its Facebook page at www.facebook.com/imperialsugar. The individual who guesses closest to the correct answer, without going over, will win a $400 Visa gift card. The contest ends July 31.

Darrell Gerdes, Manager of Research and New Product Development

The idea for a salty steviacane blend first came to Darrell Gerdes, Manager of Research and New Product Development for Imperial Sugar Company, when he was selecting a candy bar at a local convenience store last fall, not far from the company’s Port Wentworth plant.

“I saw a PayDay candy bar and thought why can’t we make a salty version of steviacane that would give that same great sweet and savory flavor but with reduced calories,” recalls Gerdes.

Tennessee Hammond, Specialty Product Manager, joined Gerdes in developing and testing the product made through a proprietary co-crystallization process that combines stevia, sugar and sea salt. The new, all-natural product is targeted to consumers, as well as the snack food industry for use in products such as popcorn, candy bars and even potato chips.

Not only does the product have reduced sugar calories but because sea salt has such a strong flavor, consumers will need to use less to get the same taste, reducing their intake of sodium.

The salty steviacane joins Imperial Sugar’s growing portfolio of sweetener solutions that are part of the company’s growth strategy to develop and market healthy and all-natural sweetener alternatives based upon its proprietary processing technology.

According to Gerdes, “After we began work on the salty steviacane we immediately saw many additional possibilities for using the blend. There are blends of cinnamon and sugar on the market but the proportions come out all wrong because sugar and cinnamon have different densities so consumers never get the exact flavor they crave. We have combined steviacane and cinnamon in a compound crystal so that every granule has the same correct proportion and great taste.”

Gerdes and his team are researching other possible savory and spicy versions of steviacane, including jalapeno and garlic flavored blends.

The plan is to offer the salty steviacane in an easy-to-use shaker so that consumers can conveniently sprinkle on popcorn, baked beans, corn-on-the cob, sweet potato fries, or virtually hundreds of other uses.

This past March, attendees to the Research Chefs Association annual conference were the first to be given an opportunity to sample the salty steviacane on popcorn. The snack was a big hit among the chefs and food scientists at the conference. The popcorn snack made with the blend was also sampled at the recent Black Expo in Savannah, Ga., and was again very popular among show visitors.

Imperial Sugar plans to continue sampling the salty steviacane at food and industry trade shows this summer, along with several other of its savory and spicy steviacane blends, including at the IFT Annual Conference & Expo in New Orleans and the Fancy Food Show in Washington, D.C.

The new sweetener option is produced at the Compound Crystallization station at the Port Wentworth refinery, and will be marketed through Natural Sweet Ventures, a partnership between Imperial Sugar Company and Pure Circle Ltd.

Sugar is the largest crop in Mexico and is an important source of employment throughout rural Mexico. Imperial Sugar saw an opportunity with the full implementation of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) in January 2008 to leverage its expertise in packaging and marketing and combine forces with Santos, an established company with a strong knowledge of the local sugar industry.

Formed in the fall of 2007, the venture markets Mexican sugar or sugar imported from the United States to customers in Mexico, as well as facilitates exports of sugar produced in Mexico into the United States. CSI markets the sugar for these mills within Mexico and ISC sells exports for the group in the U.S. According to Patrick Henneberry, Senior Vice President of Commodities Management and Sales for ISC, this partnership has allowed ISC to gain important knowledge of the Mexican market, which will prove invaluable as we increase our trade with our neighbor to the south.

“More and more U.S. companies are interested in sourcing sugar from Mexico, and the partnership of CSI and Imperial in marketing gives customers in the U.S. an experienced, single source of supply for both U.S. and Mexican product.” said Henneberry.

CSI has built a modern, state-of-the-art transfer facility to improve the marketing of sugar in the U.S. As part of ISC’s ongoing commitment to safety, the transfer facility has been built to meet the U.S.’s stringent safety standards. The transfer station, which is scheduled to start up the first week of May, will have a total transfer capability of approximately 400 tons per shift.

The facility will be able to take in sugar in 50 kilo bags or totes, and to transfer sugar to bulk railcars as well as pack the sugar in totes, 50 pound or 25 pound bags. The facility will handle sugar for Santos and ISC and will also do transfers and packing for third parties. Other products and presentations are being evaluated for the further expansion of this exciting, new facility.

“We will start off with one shift per day but will add more shifts and increase capacity as the demand for refined sugar continues to grow in the U.S. and in Mexico,” said Henneberry. “The new transfer station will help Imperial Sugar better serve its customers and meet their needs for a variety of sweeteners.”

To better manage the business, Imperial Sugar has been utilizing Right the First Time (RFT) metrics, a software program the company developed internally, which allows it to evaluate all facets of service provided to its customers. This encompasses all processes – from when the order is first received, to when the product is shipped to the customer, to the time when the consumer picks up the bag of sugar for their pantry.

Jeana Hines

According to Jeana Hines, Senior Director Sales of Consumer, Foodservice and Marketing, “It’s a very important metric for us because it provides vital information that allows us to better serve our customers, which in turn will help them better serve their individual customers.”

The objective for Imperial Sugar is to provide the customer – industrial, food service or retail – the correct product and quantity and have it delivered on time. It means doing everything possible to get the order perfect the first time. This involves a multi-functional team, which includes, but is not limited to, sales, transportation, sales planning, and customer service, to ensure this occurs consistently.

“Our RFT metrics are extremely important because customers evaluate you on your service level,” says Hines. “If our service level is not where it should be, then we must identify any and all problems and communicate with our customer that we are proactively addressing the issue.”

Data from the RFT report is analyzed and evaluated to determine a root cause and steps are taken to ensure it does not happen again. The company has made huge improvements since implementing the program.

“In a competitive industry, excellent customer service will set you apart, while addressing issues proactively and on a timely basis will ensure trust with your customers,” declares Hines.

More than 50 teams of eager, future, young businessmen and women, showed up to the Children’s Museum on Saturday, April 23, for the annual Best Tasting Lemonade Contest, which is the kick-off event for the yearly Lemonade Day to be held on Sunday, May 1. Lemonade Day is a free, community-wide program dedicated to teaching children how to start, own and operate their own business through the simple and time-honored act of building and running a lemonade stand.

During the contest, teams of children displayed their entrepreneurial skills to a dozen judges, including Jillyan Moor, Miss Teen Houston 2011, Amazing Race 7 winner Uchenna Agu, and John Sheptor, President and CEO of Imperial Sugar Company.

Lemonade Day provides youth with free materials and support, thanks to local sponsors, who recognize the significant benefits of teaching youth business skills early. Imperial Sugar Company, as the oldest company in Texas, continues to be the leader in supporting Lemonade Day and impacting the lives of Houston youth.

“As the oldest company in Texas and a vital part of the Houston community for more than 166 years, Imperial Sugar is proud to support Lemonade Day again this year,” said Sheptor. “This innovative program is teaching valuable lessons to the future business leaders of our community. Lemonade Day is good for kids and good for business

Those entrepreneurial skills were on full display Saturday morning as children proudly displayed their recipes, extolled the health benefits of their lemonade, showed off their impeccably decorated stands.

One young girl named Yaiyiana prepared a mint-flavored lemonade sweetened with honey. She explained that the mint is good for your stomach and local honey is good for allergies. Her team, no surprise, ended up winning second place in the Healthiest Lemonade category. Awards were given for Most Original and Best Tasting as well.

A delicious strawberry-basil lemonade won Most Original, and Best Tasting was given to Patricia, a 13-year-old who made her lemonade with chunks of strawberry, mango, lime and blood orange, delighting everyone who tasted it.

(l-r) Raylene Carter, Jack Kingston and John Sheptor

This was Kingston’s first visit to the plant since the dust explosion. “What is impressive is all the improvements that have been made to contain dust, to contain fires; you have more fire walls more, fire equipment, you have automatic alarms, more emergency lighting, water systems that automatically sprinkle an area if you have an explosion of any nature,” said Kingston.

Imperial Sugar Company President and CEO John Sheptor and Vice President of Manufacturing Raylene Carter, provided the Congressman with a two hour tour of the facility.

“We have applied the best technology available in any industry to explosion suppression,” said Sheptor. “There is no sugar plant in the world that is better prepared for the management of combustible dust than this facility and we have opened our doors for all industries to come see how we do it.”

Safety upgrades at Imperial Sugar include more firewalls, sprinkler systems, and emergency lighting. Its part of the company’s commitment to ensure certain safety precautions are in place, with the most important changes focusing on how sugar is moved to minimize the explosive threat of combustible dust.

“Today we use technology called dense phase conveying,” said Sheptor. “What we do is pressurize around 5000 pounds of sugar into a plug, and then we push that plug through a pipe. It’s a much safer way of moving sugar. This is similar to what happens to the canister you send to a bank teller from the drive-in window.”

Congressman Jack Kingston with John Sheptor address employees at Port Wentworth plant.

Imperial Sugar has become a leader in the industry because it has made a purposeful decision to share its experiences and improvements with others companies to protect workers and avoid a future tragedy.

According to Carter, “Representative Kingston was very interested to hear about the many visitors we have received from various other companies who have come to tour the plant and see all that we’ve done to improve safety.”

Imperial Sugar invited all U.S. sugar producers, both cane and beet, to the plant last year for a special safety day. The company has also invited a large number of its industrial customers to tour the plant and see how the production and packaging of sugar has been improved from both a safety and efficiency standpoint. Recently, technical teams from a company that manufactures paint pigments and an aluminum company visited the facility to learn how to combat combustible dust.

“Today we are operating the plant at 85 to 95 percent capacity,” said Sheptor. “People are happy they are back in their own jobs. They are happy to be operating new equipment in the packing area and that life has returned to normal, as best you can after such a tragedy.”

Sheptor says the company’s greatest moral responsibility is educating the new hires on what happened in 2008 and making sure they understand what they can do to make sure it never happens again.

Repairs to the three bulk storage silos at Port Wentworth, Georgia were completed and the silos returned to service in early April. Standing at 156 feet tall, each silo is designed to hold 6 ½ million pounds of sugar – but their size is not their only impressive quality.

In addition to storage, the primary silo, silo number one, is used to cure sugar. Through the continuous introduction of dehumidified air and the strategic placement of rings within the silo for curing air distribution, moisture levels in the sugar are reduced from .035 % to <=.025 %. Silos two and three are likewise maintained with dehumidified air and serve as storage silos to feed conditioned sugar to packaging and bulk loading departments. Needless to say, these silos are essential to smooth and efficient production at Port Wentworth.

That is why when problems were identified in the construction of the metal cones at the base of the silos, ISC was quick to initiate repairs. Repairs to the silos began in November of 2010 and were completed in January 2011. Now that the reintegration of the silos has been completed, the refinery is ramping up production rate to take full advantage. The reintegration of the silos was timed to minimize inconvenience to Imperial Sugar’s customers. While the silos were not in service production was constrained to ensure product moisture was properly managed.

Doug Svenson

Molasses is a naturally occurring byproduct of the sugar refining process. This viscous syrup, left over from the crystallization process for producing white granulated sugar, has many uses of its own. Molasses is largely marketed as a sweetening agent for cooking and baking purposes. Similarly, the Imperial Sugar Company (ISC) blends high-grade molasses into some of the specialty products it offers. Several members of the sugar industry, ISC included, have found yet another outlet to market the molasses in the agricultural sector as animal feed. Just when it seems as though no aspect of the molasses product is going to waste, and that all of its uses and potential markets have been exhausted, ISC has identified one more way to make the most out of molasses.

ISC is developing a process to convert molasses to lactic acid. While lactic acid has various applications, it is primarily used as a preservative in meat packaging and distributing facilities as a means to prevent the growth of harmful bacteria. Accordingly, ISC would market their lactic acid product to chemical brokerage companies servicing these industries.

Most consumers have heard about lactic acid but probably not as a meat preservative. Senior Process Development Engineer, Douglas Svenson points out, “Lactic acid is a great preservative because our bodies naturally produce it.”

The demand for lactic acid, which is increasing by a rate of 10 percent annually, is currently being met by companies which use corn starch as the sugar source needed to produce it. Substituting molasses for corn starch is a great opportunity for ISC as other uses for molasses have much lower margins. ISC hopes to complete its process development by the end of the calendar year.

Douglas Svenson, who spearheaded the investigation into utilizing molasses to produce lactic acid, credits the production breakthrough to an innovative and resourceful mindset inherent to ISC. In the last year alone, Douglas and his team of highly-qualified and dedicated individuals, have collaboratively produced approximately 15 new products, suggesting that consumers, shareholders, and personnel can only expect more breakthroughs in the time to come.

Thomas Rathke

Thanks to the ongoing hard work of its Research and Development, and Specialty Products Groups, Imperial Sugar Company has added another innovative product to its growing portfolio of sweetener solutions. The company has recently developed a proprietary blend and process where they produce a liquid blend of stevia and sugar that offers food and beverage companies an all-natural, reduced calorie sweetener option. The new sweetener solution will be marketed through Natural Sweet Ventures, a partnership between Imperial Sugar Company and Pure Circle Ltd.

“Since health is a major concern for many consumers, manufacturers are finding new ways to incorporate natural and functional ingredients into food products for health benefits,” said Thomas Rathke, Senior Director for Research, Engineering and Specialty products for Imperial Sugar Company. “Any food or beverage company that is currently using liquid sucrose or high fructose corn syrup can use this blend. This includes beverage manufacturers for carbonated, dairy and fruit drinks who are seeking a reduced calorie sweetener in an all-natural format.”

According to Rathke, the product is unique because it’s a very stable syrup with an extended shelf life as compared to liquid sugar that only has a shelf life of two to four days. This provides Imperial Sugar with increased flexibility in shipping the product to any part of the country and bring liquid sucrose in from anywhere.

The liquid blend of stevia and sugar is available for industrial use and is packaged in a tote, which is approximately 300 gallons. Imperial Sugar will have the ability to deliver the product to any food manufacturer or a liquid sugar melting station and blend the tote of the liquid stevia and sugar blend with one truck of liquid sucrose and generate the same sweetness as two trucks of liquid sucrose.

Rathke explains that the potential benefits and savings for our customer are great. First, they are able to provide consumers with a product containing an all-natural, reduced calorie sweetener without sacrificing taste. Next, there are transportation savings because our customer will require fewer trucks of sucrose to achieve the same sweetness. This will also help our customer reduce its carbon footprint since fewer trucks will mean less fuel consumption and fewer emissions.

Credit for the proprietary process for developing this liquid blend of stevia and sugar belongs to a devoted team of individuals in Imperial Sugar’s Research and Development, and Specialty products groups – Thomas Rathke, Darrel Gerdes, Douglas Svenson and Tennessee Hammond – who have been working tirelessly on this formulation for the past year.

This past week, Gail Lange, General Manager for New Business Development for Imperial Sugar, had an opportunity to provide a preview of the liquid blend at the Great Lakes IFT Supplier’s Night expo in Battle Creek, MI. In order to demonstrate an application of the liquid blend, Gail sprayed corn flakes with a strawberry flavor of the stevia and sugar to generate input from the cereal manufacturers based in the region.

“I’ve been talking to customers about the liquid blend and getting quite a bit of positive feedback,” said Lange. “It’s very appealing to food manufacturers because it’s twice as sweet as sugar so they will only need to use half the amount of sucrose they normally would use.”

Lange also points out that this product may be a possible weapon in the fight against obesity. She provides an example of person who drinks ten glasses of sweet tea a day, which is not uncommon in the south, and suppose each glass has 100 calories so a person would be consuming 1,000 calories a day. The stevia and sugar blend has one-third the calories, so if you multiply that by ten, a person would only consume 330 calories a day, reducing their caloric intake by 4,690 calories a week.

“This may be a tool in addressing the obesity epidemic because many people consume high-calorie foods and beverages without taking into account the health consequences,” said Lange. “If a person could consume the same amount and the taste would be the same, then it may be an easier solution than trying to change a person’s behavior which may prove difficult.”

The company plans to showcase the new product blend at food industry and technology trade shows taking place this spring and summer including at the IFT Annual Meeting and Expo taking place in New Orleans in June.