Sugar Beet
In commercial terms, sugar beet is the most important cultivated form of Beta vulgaris. It was recognized in
the sixteenth century that a sweet syrup could be extracted from the swollen roots of beet. From the mid-eighteenth
century, beetroot with large roots and white flesh were being grown in the German regions of Magdeburg and Halberstadt,
and in Silesia. These beetroot had been selected for their sweetness and large size. The Russian chemist Andreas
Sigismund Marggraf (1709-1782) discovered that crystals from syrup extracted from Silesian beet were identical to
crystals obtained from sugar cane. In both cases, the sugar crystals were pure sucrose. Marggraf was an eminent
scientist and the President of the Berlin Academy of Sciences. He presented his results to the Academy in 1747 and
the proceedings of this meeting were translated into French two years later. The amount of sugar obtained by
Marggraf from beet was relatively low, however, and at the time it did not seem worth extracting commercially.
Marggraf's student, Franz Carl Achard (1753-1821), was the first person to select and process beets specifically
to produce sugar. In a garden in Kaulsdorf, a village near Berlin, he grew different types of beet to determine which
would be the best to develop for sugar extraction. He compared a range of beets that were used to feed livestock
in southern Germany and found that conical-shaped roots, with white skins and white flesh, yielded the highest
amounts of sugar. He also showed that soil type, growing conditions and cultivation methods influenced the root?s
sugar content. Initially Achard found great variability in the plants produced from selected seed, but after a
few years he obtained a line that consistently produced higher levels of sugar than previously recorded. This
selected line was called White Silesian Beet and it is the ancestor of all modern sugar beet cultivars.
Achard presented the King of Prussia, Frederick William III, with a sugarloaf made from beet in 1799 and
requested the funding necessary to start large-scale sugar production. In 1801, the King gave Achard the money to
purchase an estate in Cunern in Lower Silesia. The first sugar beet processing factory was set up there in 1802. Despite
technical difficulties and delays, Achard obtained levels of sugar (around 4 to 6% in fresh roots) that were
sufficient to attract commercial interest. This launched sugar beet as a commercial crop.
A friend and neighbour of Achard, Moritz Baron von Koppy, built a much larger sugar beet processing factory at
Krayn, near Cunern, in 1805. Koppy established cultivation methods for sugar beet, improved the efficiency of its
processing, and found uses for the by-products of processing. The tops, beet pulp and molasses were fed to animals, for
instance, while the dried pulp made a coffee substitute and alcohol obtained from the molasses was used to make vinegar.
Achard summarized the knowledge gained by himself and Koppy in a widely-read book.
Sugar beet is therefore a relatively recent crop. At the start of the nineteenth century, all Europe's sugar was
obtained from sugar cane grown on plantations in the Americas. The slave revolts in the plantations of Santa Domingo
in the 1790s, however, were the first sign that supplies of imported cane sugar could not always be relied upon. The flow
of sugar could be disrupted, while a sense of unease in was starting to develop in parts of Europe about a system that
relied on slavery.
The sugar beet industry in Europe effectively started in France and Belgium in 1811, at the instigation of
Napoleon Bonaparte. His economic plan for continental Europe, in the first decade of the seventeenth century, placed
an emphasis on developments that reduced imports of goods supplied by British colonial trade, including sugar cane.
Napoleon's army was occupying Silesia in around 1810 and he fully exploited the advances being made there in sugar
beet production. A French Commission had confirmed Achard?s findings and presented Napoleon with loaves of beet
sugar in January 1811. Later that year, Napoleon instigated a policy that rapidly increased beet sugar production
in France and in countries under French control. In 1811, around forty small beet factories, mainly in France and
Germany, were established. This indigenous source of sugar soon became of strategic importance to Napoleon, because
English naval blockades stopped imports of cane sugar from the West Indies reaching France during the Napoleonic Wars.
After the decline of the Napoleonic Empire, from 1813 onwards, the rapid spread of sugar beet cultivation was
stopped, and cane imports were resumed. However, sugar beet cultivation, albeit over much smaller areas, continued
in France and Germany. The French experimented with different lines of beet derived from Achard's original selections.
By 1824, five types of beet selected for sugar production were described (grosse rouge, petite rouge, rouge ronde,
jaune and blanche). A distinction was made during the 1830s between types of forage or fodder beets (Runkelrübe) and
types of sugar beet (Zucherrübe)
The plant breeder Louis de Vilmorin (1816-1860) discovered that sugar beet root extracts of high density yielded
more sugar, enabling him to devise a method using specific gravity to quantify sugar content in comparison with
solutions of known sugar concentration. In 1852, this technique was modified into the silver ingot method, which
became a standard for measuring the sugar content of beet juice. The polarimeter - a device to measure the optical
properties of liquids - was also invented around this time; the amount of sugar in beet juice being quantified using
the Ventzke scale, named after the its inventor. Vilmorin and other plant breeders were able to make rapid
progress in improving sugar beet through continuous selection using these new techniques. From the 1830s, beet sugar
production again increased in France and Germany. By the 1870s, numerous beet factories had been established throughout
central and eastern Europe.
Sugar beet has been cultivated continuously in Germany since the time of Achard. Systematic plant breeding soon led
to the production of improved varieties in the latter half of the nineteenth century. A new variety called Imperial
was produced in around 1860 near Halle, for instance, which had a uniform appearance and a relatively high sugar
content (11-13%). By 1880, breeding programs in France and Germany had resulted in sugar beet with up to 18-20% sugar
per fresh weight of root. This is an acceptable level of sugar by today's standards. Around the 1880s, however, the aims
of plant breeders diverged. Raising sugar yield ceased to be the only goal for sugar beet improvement. The different
types of sugar beet that were subsequently produced will be considered in the following chapter.
Sugar beet cultivation started in the USA in the 1830s, when German and French immigrants arrived bringing the
necessary technology with them. By the 1890s, sugar beet processing facilities had been established in California,
Nebraska, Utah and Colorado. A large expansion US beet sugar occurred in 1900. By the 1990s, around 8% of the world's
total sugar beet crop was grown in the USA. However, this area is now declining, due to the increased importance of
corn syrup and sweeteners obtained from maize.
Sugar beet production started later in other European countries. In England, for example, the first sugar beet
was cultivated in 1920s, although it is now a major crop that is focused on Suffolk. Today, sugar beet is grown
throughout Europe and in North America.
In 1900, more of the world's sugar (sucrose) was produced by beet (63%) than from cane. However, this peak in the
proportion of sugar produced by beet was followed by a relative decline due to an international agreement in 1901 that
stopped import taxes being levied on cane sugar. Today, around two-fifths of the world's sugar is produced from
sugar beet. Sugar beet still has an advantage over sugar cane, in that it grows in temperate regions where consumption
of sugar is highest. Indeed, sugar consumption in industrial counties skyrocketed in the late twentieth century. This
has been one factor in the dramatic increase in rates of obesity observed, especially in North America.
Twenty-first Century
The rise of alternative sweeteners, a public health backlash against excessive sugar in foodstuffs, and a
surplus of sugar beet in the expanded European Union of 2004 are among the factors that have placed sugar
beet cultivation at a crossroads. However, new and diversified markets should ensure that it continues to
be an economically important crop well into the future. Brazil first grew sugar beet for ethanol production
(gasohol) in 1979. Its use to make biofuel and other industrial products is set to increase.
Sugar beet was one of the first crops to be genetically modified. Biotechnology is being utilized to
produce a range of novel sugars and proteins in sugar beet. The future prospects for modifying
Beta vulgaris will be examined further in Chapter Four. Beetroot, meanwhile, continues to enjoy a
revival as a healthy, wholesome and no-nonsense vegetable. In later chapters, its health benefits
and culinary versatility will be explored. Its future looks rosy.
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