Michigan Sugar to buy Monitor Sugar

Rural Cooperatives, Sept-Oct, 2004 by Dan Campbell

Michigan Sugar, owned by 1,000 Michigan sugarbeet farmers, plans to buy Monitor Sugar Co., owned by Illovo Sugar Ltd. of Durban, South Africa, for $63 million. Monitor is supplied by about 600 farmers. The new company will operate under the name Michigan Sugar, but the co-op will continue to market under Monitor's Big Chief Sugar brand, in addition to its own Pioneer Sugar brand.

"I think it's a good thing for the growers here," Jack C. Frank, a member of the board of the Monitor Sugar Beet Growers, told the Bay City Times. "The industry has been here 103 years and it should stay here. For our industry to survive, we had to become a coop. That's the trend."

Michigan sugarbeet growers produce about $115 million worth of sugarbeets a year, 3 percent of the state's $3.8 billion in farm revenue. The industry employs 1,400 farmers and 2,300 workers at five processing plants, four owned by Michigan Sugar and one by Monitor Sugar.

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