The little factory that could

Sugar campaign now in full swing

Sugar beet harvest was about 55% complete Monday as Western Sugar’s Lovell factory processed the crop grown by Big Horn Basin farmers, factory manager Shannon Ellis said Monday.

Ellis presented some early campaign numbers at the Lovell Area Chamber of Commerce luncheon Monday at the Mustang Café. The seasonal campaign connects area agriculture with local jobs, bringing 68 seasonal workers to the plant with 40 year-round employees, Ellis said. 

Harvest and production started late, and rain further delayed harvest. Weather has held up so far, but frost remains a concern as growers bring in the remaining crop. Current beet sugar content ranges from 17% to 18%, Ellis said.

Cold weather can complicate both harvest and factory operations. Beet tops can lie flat after a frost, making them difficult to remove in the field. Tops that reach the factory can become tangled, rope-like material that clogs slicers, requiring workers to stop and pressure-wash the equipment.

Inside the factory, harvested beets are piled, floated into the plant and washed before moving to the third floor. There, slicers cut them into thin strips called cossettes. The strips enter a diffuser containing about 85 tons of hot water, which draws sugar from the beets. The remaining pulp is pressed to recover additional sugar and made into cattle feed and pellets. Limestone is burned to produce carbon dioxide, and the burned rock is mixed with sweetwater, a processing byproduct, to make milk of lime. That mixture, with a pH of 12, helps remove non-sugar material from the raw juice.

Carbon dioxide is then added to form fine limestone particles that carry impurities out of the juice. The resulting mud is pressed to recover sweetwater, dried and hauled away. The clarified juice is evaporated, boiled under vacuum and put through a centrifuge to separate white sugar.

The Lovell plant averages about 88% sugar extraction, meaning it recovers about 88% of the sugar contained in the beets. Ellis said the factory consistently slices 3,000 tons of beets a day and has reached 3,100 tons a couple of times. That volume generally produces about 1 million pounds of white granulated sugar in 24 hours.

For Lovell, the campaign brings seasonal employment alongside the factory’s year-round workforce. Workers change shifts every seven days, and temperatures inside the plant can reach 125 degrees, adding to the demands of processing the local crop.

The factory at the end of Main Street links Big Horn Basin farms with the families who work to turn their harvest into sugar. Its daily production reflects both the crop grown in the basin’s soil and the processing work carried out in Lovell.

Bighorn Canyon Interpretation and Education Manager Christy Fleming was excited to hear news from Western Sugar as she fields many questions from tourists at the Cal S. Taggart Visitor Center. Chamber Manager Linda Morrison said she also fields questions from visitors as far away as Norway about the sugar factory and is now better prepared to answer some of those questions thanks to Ellis’ presentation Monday.