When they need to cup sugar, Italians don't ask themselves where the coffee added to coffee or any other food comes from. And what does the average Italian know about this raw material used by chefs and pastry shops, but above all by the food and wine, chemical, pharmaceutical and other industries?
Yeah, why of sugar in our country by now there is almost no more. In the face of a average consumption of 7 kilos per year per family, for a total of 1,6 million tons, 2018 production stopped at 190 thousand tons: not even 12% of the requirement. And given that raw cane has always come from the tropics, missing is more and more the white one, extracted from beets.
“This year the sowing started early, thanks to the good weather they are also almost finished and concern a total area of about 30 thousand hectares”, says the president of the ANB, Giangiacomo Gallarati Scotti Bonaldi. A thousand hectares more than in 2018, despite Sadam, a company of the Maccaferri Group, this year having decided to suspend processing in its sugar factory in San Quirico, in the province of Parma. Leaving the beets transformed only to the Coprob Group, in the two factories of Minerbio (Bologna) and Pontelongo (Padua).
“Prices for farmers – explains the president of the ANB (National Association of Beet Growers) – thanks to coupled aid from the European Union this year are close to 700 euros per hectare”. And on the basis of three-year agreements, producers are incentivized with further prizes to diversify and allocate part of the surfaces to organic farming, as well as for the production of biomethane and pulp for livestock breeding. “The problem – adds Gallarati Scotti – is to give this sector a future in Italy, because the processing costs remain high and the world sugar market, after last year's price collapse, continues to reduce the profitability margins of the production chain".
The numbers are known. And merciless. Before the EU reform of 2005, almost 250 hectares of beets were grown in Italy, which were processed in 19 sugar factories. And despite the investments made to upgrade the plants, the sugar companies closed down or diversified their activities within a few years. But the reference price of sugar then flew over 630 euros per ton, now it stands at 404 euros. While the price on the international market last year collapsed to 320.
Of course, if Italy cries, Europe doesn't laugh. And according to Unionzucchero, the slight recovery in prices recorded in recent months does not give a guarantee of economic sustainability not even to the sugar producers of the Old Continent. Which, after having already presented 2018 financial statements in the red, have announced major restructuring plans and the closure of factories in France, Germany and Poland, forcing thousands of beet growers to opt for the sowing of other crops.
A negative picture that followed the end of the production quota regime – definitively archived after 50 years, on 2017 October 25 – but which is also the result of an increase in sowing in central Europe of up to 50 percent. Last year, thanks to the high temperatures, production in France and Germany recorded a surge of around XNUMX percent.
The crisis of the system is now on the tables in Brussels. On 19 March, the High Sugar Level Group will meet again to evaluate urgent interventions by the EU Commission, in the short and medium term, in support of the sector. “Italian companies – explains the director of the Union, Patrick Pagani – had already prepared themselves to face this crisis by investing in sugar factories, increasing their production capacity and reducing their energy consumption. Even on the agronomic level, the supply chain has equipped itself by focusing on best practices, innovation and the identification of new products, such as organic sugar, which guarantees better remuneration and meets new consumer demands".
It goes without saying that for Italy it is a last, and almost desperate, attempt to keep alive a sugar beet supply chain reduced to a minimum. “The goal – adds Pagani – is to maintain the value of the national product in the area, in compliance with social and environmental rules, and not depend completely on the volatility of prices on world markets. For this reason, considering that 80% of the sugar produced is destined for transformation into sweets and beverages, supply chain agreements involving the first transformation and users of sugar are necessary in order to have a fair remuneration for the 100% Italian product”.
A bet that the Coprob Group of Bologna, the only player left on track this year, has already planned to take on with the high quality products under the “Italia Zuccheri” and “Nostrano” brands.
The self-transformation cooperative – 5.600 farms that produce beets on 30 hectares, two sugar refineries, 500 employees and a turnover of around 200 million – has already invested 160 million to modernize the plants. But now, as the president, Claudio Gallerani says, two conditions are needed: “Production self-regulation that takes into account the world reference price and a national sugar sector plan, moreover already sketched out and ready on the tables of the Ministry of Agricultural Policies. In 2020 we are aiming for a 40% increase in sowing".
For the rest, reflects the general manager of Coprob, Stefano Dozio, “we are facing a schizophrenic story: on the one hand, the calls in recent years to reduce the consumption of sugar in diets; on the other hand, the prices of this commodity which have fallen by 30% in three to four years. And this while five multinationals govern the world market of the sector”. More than bitter rice.
