In case you think you haven’t tried sugar beet, odds are, you have. Roughly 35 percent of all sugar produced worldwide comes from sugar beets and well over half of the sugar produced in the U.S. is grown in Colorado, Utah, and other cooler climates. Little did you know…but these sugars ultimately end up in your candy bar or chocolate creams.
The story of the sugar beet begins with Napoleon Bonaparte. The sugar beet reached him via Andreas Marggraf, a Prussian chemist, who, in 1747, found that crystals formed from beet roots and sugarcane were identical in nature. His research was incomplete and after he died a French chemist living in Prussia, Karl Achard, solved the mystery of how to transform beets into usable sugar. He had help, along those lines, from Fredrick the Great. Achard's work ended once his benefactor passed on. Other scientists continued their investigations, but none with the energy or focus as Napoleon, who recognized the beet as the answer to a problem of his own.
At that time, most French citizens were getting their sugar from the British-ruled West Indies. During the Napoleonic Wars two events cut off their supply: the British blockade of continental Europe plus Napoleon’s ban on products from the enemy...i.e. the British. Barbados was no-man’s land as far as the French and their allies were concerned and they needed an alternative.
The beet sugar was it. It was relatively easy to grow, could crystalize, unlike sugars such as honey and sorghum, and unlike the feisty cane sugar, could grow in temperate climates. Between 1810 and 1815, scientists tested the power of the beet, farmers grew it over 79,000 acres of land, and hundreds of factories throughout France started to produce it.
The news wasn’t lost on Americans who, early on, tried growing the sugar beet themselves, to varying degrees of success. The Sandusky Clarion of Clarion, Ohio, posted this news on October 30, 1822:
“Major Fredrick Falley has this season raised a beet, from the seed of the Bonaparte sugar Beet, which after trimming off the leaves weighed thirty pounds. It measured in length three feet and four inches, in circumference, two feet, seven inches; which beet Maj. Falley tends to cultivate next season for the purpose of raising seed.”
The sugar beet’s popularity didn’t take off immediately; in fact, Major Falley’s efforts were pretty much forgotten. In Europe, its popularity dipped, but only briefly, once Napoleon’s reign ended and tropical sugar was available again. By the 1850s, however, as sugar grew more expensive and harder to get, the beet sugar regained its important place.
Abolitionists’ Revenge
Abolitionists seized the opportunity the beet sugar presented to break their reliance on the heat-loving cane. Their knowledge of the beet, and the seed itself, came from France. In style typical of the day, the Beet Sugar Society of Philadelphia sent an agriculturist to Europe. He returned with 500 pounds of French seeds which he dispersed to nurserymen and farmers across the nation.
Abolitionists everywhere proclaimed the virtues of the beet sugar where it made numerous appearances in the quintessential abolitionist publication, The Liberator. In 1836, just as the Beet Sugar Society was collecting their seeds, The Liberator wrote:
“It is time when all interested in agriculture, or commerce, or politics should direct their attention to the subject of making sugar of beets…If it shall outrun the West India sugar, then our market will be supplied by two competing sugar departments, the Northern and the Southern... It will cripple the Southwestern states in a very essential degree, and reduce the value of slaves…”
The first sugar beet was grown in earnest in Northampton, Massachusetts by David Lee Child, an abolitionist, in 1839. Child’s efforts won him praise and a silver medal from Paul Revere’s prestigious Massachusetts Charitable Association. But his efforts failed due to crude machinery, poor-quality beets, and limited growing knowledge.
The Death and Un-death of Beet Sugar
Beet sugar reawakened in Nebraska around 1890. One advocate was Harvey Wiley, Chief Chemist for the USDA. In 1897, the Epitomist Publishing Company wrote him seeking advice for farmers eager to produce beet sugar at home. Wiley replied candidly, explaining that beet sugar needed proper factory processing or it would be bitter, unlike cane sugar, which is sweet even when minimally processed.
Still, farmers persisted. Much of the success came from Thomas Oxnard’s son, Henry, who studied sugar beet refining in Europe. By 1899, the American Beet Sugar Company became the largest producer in the U.S.
By 1911, massive factories spanned Utah, California, Idaho, Colorado, and Michigan. Vendors imported seeds from Europe. Magazines offered beet-processing tools and resources to modernize production.
Beet sugar broke the monopoly of the Sugar Trust. A 1913 article proclaimed:
“For the first time in the quarter century that the Sugar Trust has been in existence, its domination…has been broken…by the increase of sugars grown by American farmers.”
Beet sugar became a local, affordable option—but it faced an image problem. Housewives distrusted it. The name “beet” was unappealing.
The industry responded. The American Beet Sugar Industry rebranded as American Crystal Sugar in 1934, promising “pure sugar.” Their rival, cane sugar, uses the term “Pure Cane Sugar.”
C&H Sugar once claimed:
“If cane sugar is not specified on the label, the sugar may be beet sugar…Not exactly what you want when you go to the effort of baking something fresh from scratch!”
Yet today, beet sugar outranks cane sugar in the U.S. Most of us wouldn’t know the difference… and probably don’t care.
