The industry funds its own agricultural research and development programme, evaluating new techniques that continually increase the competitiveness of the UK beet sugar industry - now placed at number three in the EU rankings of sugar productivity. Facts 8,500 beet growers. Crop area 165,000 hectares. Annual yield around nine million tonnes of beet. Produces approximately 1.4 million tonnes of sugar and 800,000 tonnes of animal feed.
Sugar beet remains one of the most highly profitable arable crops for UK farmers.
British Sugar pays around 300 million annually for the whole beet crop. Sugar beet growing is a totally mechanised operation with only 50 man hours per hectare are required to grow a typical crop, compared with 500 man hours 30 years ago. Seed is sown in March and early April. Processing begins in September and lasts until the late February.