The sugar cane arrives at the processing 'mill' minus the leaves which have been removed by the harvester. Here the stalks are washed, cut into small pieces and shredded. The sweet natural juice is pressed from the cane using high pressure rollers. Hot water is also added to improve the juice extraction and the remaining dry cane stalks called bagasse is burnt in the mill's boilers to produce renewable electricity.
The sweet natural juice is heated to 80oc and lime is added to purify and neutralise the juice. Fine fiber particles form a scum on the juice surface and other soil mineral matter sticks to the lime which is dragged to the bottom of the vessel where it settles as sediment. These solids are filtered from the juice and returned to the cane fields as natural fertiliser.
Evaporators then boil the raw juice to between 70oc (160oF) and 130oc under a vacuum for up to two hours to evaporate the natural water, creating a very sweet thick amber juice.
The amber juice is then seeded with tiny sugar crystals, boiled under vacuum which allows the crystals to grow which creates a super saturated massecuite syrup. During this process the natural raw colour, flavour and aroma of molasses is formed.
Centrifugal machines spin the massecuite syrup and crystals at 1,050 rpm for two minutes to separate the crystals from the massecuite syrup. The separated syrup still contains significant amounts of sugar, so the syrup is spun a second, third and finally fourth crystallisation stage to extract the maximum amount of raw sugar. The first and second spin produces 'C' sugar which is shipped in bulk for white sugar refining. The third and fourth spun sugars are mixed with a magma of molasses to produce affinated 'C' sugar and muscovado sugars, which are used to produce 'special sugars'.
Once the sugar crystals have been separated from the massecuite syrup, the sugar enters a drum rotating drier and is then cooled. Raw 'C' sugars are then loaded into lorries for delivery to the port terminal. 'Special sugars' then pass over a vibratory screen and through a rare earth magnet before being packed into bags.
At the port terminal lorries discharge the bulk sugar onto a conveyor system which stores the sugar in a warehouse that can hold up to 80,000 tonnes of sugar. The raw 'C' sugar is then loaded onto ships that can hold between 15 to 30,000 tonnes, thus enabling the shipments to have a low carbon footprint rating. The sugar is then delivered to European refineries, where further clarification takes place to produce refined white sugar.
