Sugar Beet - History

History

In the 16th century, Olivier de Serres discovered the value of sugar beets for preparing sugar syrup. In his notes, Olivier de Serres wrote: ‘The beet-root, when being boiled, yields a juice similar to syrup of sugar, which is beautiful to look at on account of its vermilion color.’

The methodical use of sugar beets for the extraction of sugar dates to 1747, when Andreas Sigismund Marggraf, professor of physics in the Academy of Science of Berlin, discovered the existence of a sugar in beets similar in its properties to that obtained from sugar cane. The discovery was little utilized at first, however, and the manufacture of sugar from beets did not attain commercial importance for over half a century. Marggraf's student and successor Franz Karl Achard began selectively breeding sugar beet from the White Silesian fodder beet in 1784. By the beginning of the 19th century, his beet was approximately 5–6 percent sucrose by (dry) weight, compared to around 20 percent in modern varieties. Under the patronage of Frederick William III of Prussia, he opened the world's first beet sugar factory in 1801, at Cunern in Silesia.

The work of Achard soon attracted the attention of Napoleon Bonaparte, who appointed a commission of scientists to go to Silesia to investigate Achard's factory. Upon their return, two small factories were constructed near Paris. Although these two factories were not altogether a success, the results attained greatly interested Napoleon, and in 1811 he issued a decree appropriating one million francs ($200,000) for the establishment of sugar schools, and compelling the farmers to plant a large acreage to sugar beets the following year. He also prohibited the further importation of sugar from the Caribbean effective 1813.

The beet sugar industry in Europe rapidly developed after the Napoleonic Wars. By 1812 Frenchman Jean-Baptiste Quéruel working for the industrialist Benjamin Delessert devised a process of sugar extraction suitable for industrial application. By 1837, France was the largest sugar beet producer in the world, a position it continued to hold in the world in 2010. By 1837, there were 542 factories in France, producing 35,000 tonnes of sugar. By 1880, Germany became the largest sugar beet to sugar producer in the world.

Successful sugar beet and associated sugar production started in the United States in about 1890. The states of California and Nebraska were early pioneers of sugar beet industry.

Sugar beet was not grown on a large scale in the United Kingdom until the mid-1920s when 17 processing factories were built, following war-time shortages of imported sugar cane. One factory had, however, been built by the Dutch at Cantley in Norfolk in 1912. Sugar beet seed from France was listed in the annual catalogues of Gartons Agricultural Plant Breeders from that firm's inception in 1898 until the first of their own varieties was introduced in 1909.