Exportation is the product.

The production of sugar has advanced rapidly in the modern era, and Brazil has led that development for decades. It sequenced the sugarcane genome, created over one hundred strains of the crop, and developed milling and refining methods so sophisticated that refineries often sell excess energy back to the national grid instead of paying for electricity.

Brazil also invented VHP raw sugar — a raw product with a minimum sucrose content of 99.4%. To make it, raw cane juice is heated to the point where sucrose crystals form; the juice is cooled, the crystals form, and solution and crystals are separated by centrifuge — the molasses spun away from the sugar.

Before VHP, raw cane juice was simply boiled down to a dark brown natural sugar full of contaminants and mixed with molasses, requiring heavy processing to refine into the sparkling white ICUMSA 45 that now dominates the developed world as the sweetener of choice.

Capacity in this industry is its own discipline: output depends on daily cane crushed, the recovery rate driven by cane quality, and the length of the crushing season. Cane does not travel far — geography decides what a mill can promise. Ours lets us promise a great deal.