Nature’s preferred sweetener, sugar, is abundant in Michigan! Michigan sugar is a “real sweet” deal for our state’s economy, and it’s available to Michiganders and neighboring states all year long.
Click the button to download our fact sheet and find out when you can find the freshest locally grown products!
Michigan Sugar Facts
- More than 1.3 billion pounds of sugar is produced in Michigan each year by Michigan Sugar Company.
- Michigan Sugar Company’s roughly 865 grower-owners plant, grow, and harvest about 140,000 acres of sugarbeets each year.
- Michigan Sugar Company is the third largest of eight sugarbeet processing companies in the United States and Michigan is one of 11 states in the country where sugarbeets are grown.
- Michigan Sugar Company’s Pioneer Sugar brand can be found in many grocery stores throughout Michigan, Ohio, Indiana, and other Midwest states.
- No part of the sugarbeet is wasted. Michigan Sugar Company’s byproducts include pulp and molasses that are both used in producing livestock feed.
Nutrition
- Sugar has 4 calories per gram, 15 calories per teaspoon.
- To consumers, “sugar” means table sugar or sucrose. In a food’s ingredient statement, “sugar” always means sucrose.
- During digestion, sugars such as sucrose (table sugar) and other carbohydrates such as starches break down into simple sugars.
- These then travel through the blood stream to body cells where they provide energy and are stored for future use.
- Researchers do not know why diabetes occurs, but they know sugar intake does not cause it. Diabetes is a disorder in the way the body handles sugars.
- Extra calories may come from any energy-containing nutrient (proteins, fats, carbohydrates and alcohol). As carbohydrates, sugars actually contain fewer calories than fats and alcohol.
To learn more visit Michigan Sugar Company and
for recipes and fun facts visit Pioneer Sugar.