France’s Cristal Union To Buy Lesaffre Freres Sugar Refinery
France’s second-largest sugar maker, Cristal Union, will acquire the Lesaffre family’s refinery in Nangis, preserving beet farming south of Paris. The plant processes 600,000 tonnes of beet annually. This follows Ouvre’s recent closure. Meanwhile, Südzucker reported a €33 million quarterly loss, citing falling prices and increased EU sugar imports from Ukraine.
France’s second largest sugar maker Cristal Union said it had reached an agreement to take over the refinery of the Lesaffre family located south of Paris, marking a new consolidation in the French sugar sector.
‘This new entity will make it possible to sustainably perpetuate beet cultivation in the south of the Paris Basin, while strengthening Cristal Union’s industrial network,’ Cristal Union said in a statement.
The family sugar factory located in Nangis has 110 employees and processes around 600,000 metric tonnes of beet per year.
Another French sugar maker, Ouvre, said in mid-January it was shutting its sole factory, also south of Paris, due to technical and financial problems, marking the sixth sugar plant closure in France in as many years.
Cristal Union has several sugar refineries in the region south of Paris.
Sugar Exports
In June of last year, Cristal Union said it plans to double exports of the sweetener next season to lighten an expected surplus in the European Union linked to larger beet plantings as farmers were attracted by high sugar prices.
Elsewhere, Europe’s largest sugar producer, Südzucker, reported a quarterly operating loss, with its core sugar division in the red on falling prices and market turbulence following the war in Ukraine.
Südzucker reported a group operating loss in the third quarter to end November 2024 of its 2024/25 fiscal year of €33 million, down from operating profit of €268 million in the same year-ago quarter.
Südzucker warned in October its third-quarter earnings would decline, partly because the EU is permitting extra sugar imports from Ukraine as part of its support for the country after the Russian invasion, generating competition for EU producers.
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Source : ESM
