The $65 million investment will go toward a desugarization facility at the Bay City location. That location has desugarization capabilities, but not with modern technology.
“The technology became available in the 90s and the Monitor Sugar Company installed equipment in this Bay City factory in the late 90s, but that equipment was only sized for this factory—it wasn’t sized for a four-factory operation,” says Mark Flegenheimer, president and CEO of Michigan Sugar. “What we’re announcing today is a facility that’s going to double in size—we’re going to go from 325,000 tons per day of molasses desugarization to 650,000 tons.”
Flegenheimer says some of that old equipment will be used in the new project.
“We’re actually going to utilize some of the equipment that’s there,” he told Michigan Ag Today. “Some of it will get replaced with this new equipment so it’s a hybrid. We’re not building 100 percent new equipment—we’re utilizing some of the equipment that exists, but then putting in state-of-the-art new equipment with increased capacity.”
The amount of sugar the company produces will drastically increase by 80 million pounds, without planting more beet acres. According to Flegenheimer, these sustainability efforts will cause grower-owners to see returns of $10 million to $15 million.
“We’ve been around for over 10 years and investments like today allow us another 100 years of investments like this,” he says. “A lot of these gentlemen that are on our board will tell you we don’t make this investment for ourselves, we make this for the next generation.”
The project will begin this fall and should take between 18 and 24 months to complete. Michigan Sugar’s 2021-2022 campaign began last week. According to the company, they’re anticipating processing 5 million tons of sugar this year.
