As stated last week, I was fortunate to be able to travel with members of the Federation of Agricultural Retail Merchants (FARM) on their recent tour through parts of Denmark.

There was certainly a lot of activity in fields of sugar beet and we visited a factory in Nakskov on the western side of Lolland to see where it all ended up. This is a brief report of that visit and a picture of what is needed to help keep the industry efficient and competitive.

Beet harvesting was certainly in full swing three weeks ago. It was interesting to see so many self-propelled harvesters working and all of these had some form of chaser bin operating alongside.

These took the beet from the harvesters and subsequently deposited the roots in tidy clamps on a field edge beside a road for collection and delivery.

These clamps are then lifted again using large cleaner loaders, generally self-propelled, and these lift and clean the beet going onto the transport vehicles without causing much damage to the ground beneath.

The Nordic Sugar factory

During our tour we visited the Nordic Sugar plant at Nakskov in western Lolland. This was a very impressive plant, founded in 1882, and is now producing around 230,000 tonnes of sugar per annum.

It is undergoing continuous development and refurbishment with many of the changes being driven by the potential for energy saving. Nordic Sugar is a member of the Nordzucker Group.

We were shown around by Allan Borreskov who told us that the plant processed around 1.25 million tonnes of beet per annum and is now processing close to 600 tonnes per hour.

All of the beet for this factory is grown within a 25km radius of the factory. It is delivered by a combination of tractor and trailer or truck but it was mainly tractors when we visited.

Tractor units hauled double trailers – the second was always a dolly trailer while the first trailer was sometimes on a dolly and sometimes it was a straight shaft to the tractor linkage.

The trailers varied in size but they all tipped to the side to drop the beet directly into the reception area.

The beet looked relatively clean, given the conditions in the fields, but Allan said that when the plant was processing 530 tonnes of beet per hour the washing process was removing an average of 33 tonnes of soil plus six tonnes of stones per hour also. This equates to nearly 800 tonnes of soil per day to be removed and deposited elsewhere to settle.

After that the plant was reasonably similar to the plants that had operated in Ireland. However, Allan said that this business needs to be very efficient as margins are tight.

During discussions he said that processing costs equate to roughly one-third of total cost and the sugar beet itself accounts for two-thirds of the cost of the final sugar.

Allan said that a recent investment in energy saving technology had significantly decreased the total energy requirement at that plant and that was helping efficiency.

Changes in the industry

Figures that had been presented to us earlier in the tour indicated a substantial reduction in the area sown to sugar beet in recent years. Allan agreed that this had happened.

He indicated that it was part of the strategic vision for the industry into the future and six factories were reduced to two based on the ability of growers and their land to produce high sugar yields into the future and to deliver it efficiently.

Sugar beet production in Denmark is now largely confined to the islands of Lolland, southern Zealand and Falster. This is to do with the amount of highly productive land that is needed to sustain farm rotations and the business into the future.

This rationalisation decision was based on the need for the remaining growers to be able to compete with the best growers in France and Germany.

So rationalisation was largely based on potential productivity. Nordic Sugar is currently pursuing a 2020 objective, which is to produce 20 tonnes of sugar per hectare by 2020.

It is hoped that this will be delivered through a combination of ever increasing yield and sugar content. Current average sugar levels are generally in excess of 18% but they may be slightly lower this year following the poor growing season.

Delivery of beet is controlled and modern communication tools like texts and emails are used to communicate with the growers. It is obviously well controlled because there was no queues evident at any point during our visit. But Allan said that trailers could be stopped quite quickly in the event of a breakdown in the factory.

Rationalisation will continue

The ending of the EU quota regime will bring changes. Allan said that there will be further rationalisation within the EU as some regions will be able to drive on, but this may happen at the expense of casualties elsewhere. Businesses will need to be very sharp and efficient to survive but he believes that the Danish industry has already taken the necessary rationalisation measures.