The Sugar refinery of Tienen ( nl, Tiense Suikerraffinaderij; french: Raffinerie Tirlemontoise), a subsidiary of ''Raffinerie Tirlemontoise Group'' (RT Group), is a Belgian

sugar Sugar is the generic name for sweet-tasting, soluble carbohydrates, many of which are used in food. Simple sugars, also called monosaccharides, include glucose, fructose, and galactose. Compound sugars, also called disaccharides or double ...

producing company. The company whose headquarters is located in Tienen (

Belgium Belgium, ; french: Belgique ; german: Belgien officially the Kingdom of Belgium, is a country in Northwestern Europe. The country is bordered by the Netherlands to the north, Germany to the east, Luxembourg to the southeast, France to th ...

) has four business units: sugar activities, Orafti, Surafti and PPE, which together employ more than 1,800 people. The company operates two

sugar refineries A sugar refinery is a refinery which processes raw sugar from cane or beets into white refined sugar. Many cane sugar mills produce raw sugar, which is sugar that still contains molasses, giving it more colour (and impurities) than the white ...

in Belgium: Tienen (12,500 tons of beets per day) and Wanze with a refinery in Longchamps (16,500 tons of beets per day).

History

The

sugar beet A sugar beet is a plant whose root contains a high concentration of sucrose and which is grown commercially for sugar production. In plant breeding, it is known as the Altissima cultivar group of the common beet (''Beta vulgaris''). Together wi ...

industry in

Europe Europe is a large peninsula conventionally considered a continent in its own right because of its great physical size and the weight of its history and traditions. Europe is also considered a Continent#Subcontinents, subcontinent of Eurasia ...

and Belgium has its roots in the Continental System of

Napoleon I Napoleon Bonaparte ; it, Napoleone Bonaparte, ; co, Napulione Buonaparte. (born Napoleone Buonaparte; 15 August 1769 – 5 May 1821), later known by his regnal name Napoleon I, was a French military commander and political leader who ...

in his struggle against the

United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland was a sovereign state in the British Isles that existed between 1801 and 1922, when it included all of Ireland. It was established by the Acts of Union 1800, which merged the Kingdom of Great B ...

during the

Napoleonic Wars The Napoleonic Wars (1803–1815) were a series of major global conflicts pitting the French Empire and its allies, led by Napoleon I, against a fluctuating array of European states formed into various coalitions. It produced a period of Fren ...

Sugar Sugar is the generic name for sweet-tasting, soluble carbohydrates, many of which are used in food. Simple sugars, also called monosaccharides, include glucose, fructose, and galactose. Compound sugars, also called disaccharides or double ...

from sugar beets was increasingly used as an alternative for

sugarcane Sugarcane or sugar cane is a species of (often hybrid) tall, Perennial plant, perennial grass (in the genus ''Saccharum'', tribe Andropogoneae) that is used for sugar Sugar industry, production. The plants are 2–6 m (6–20 ft) tall with ...

, when in 1807 the British began a blockade of

France France (), officially the French Republic ( ), is a country primarily located in Western Europe. It also comprises of Overseas France, overseas regions and territories in the Americas and the Atlantic Ocean, Atlantic, Pacific Ocean, Pac ...

, which prevented the import of sugarcane from the

Caribbean The Caribbean (, ) ( es, El Caribe; french: la Caraïbe; ht, Karayib; nl, De Caraïben) is a region of the Americas that consists of the Caribbean Sea, its islands (some surrounded by the Caribbean Sea and some bordering both the Caribbean Se ...

The Sugar refinery of Tienen itself was founded in 1836 and in the early years production was about 10 sacks of raw sugar per day. By 1880, sugar beet cultivation rose to 1,000 tonnes. In 1894

Paul Wittouck Paul Grégoire Pierre Wittouck (6 August 1851 – 9 November 1917) was a Belgian industrialist. He and his brother Frantz Wittouck became the largest sugar manufacturers in Belgium in the period leading up to the Great War. He was the grandson o ...

and his brother, Frans, took over Vinckenbosch & Cie, owner of the sugar refinery of Tienen, and turned it into a limited company. The brothers faced fierce competition from other sugar manufacturers in Belgium, but emerged as the dominant firm. Through a series of technical innovations and improvement the volume of sugar produced in Tienen rose from 7,000 tonnes in 1894 to 62,000 tonnes in 1913. The company began to export sugar and to take over other Belgian companies. In 1931, the Chadbourne plan was the first international agreement on sugar production, but due to international overproduction the situation of the sugar industry remained difficult until the end of

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...

. In 1949, F. Baerts, J. Dedek and G. Tibo of the ''Sugar refinery of Tienen'' invited several scientists form the European sugar industry to Brussels on 18 September 1949. This would lead to the foundation of the ''Commission Internationale Technique de Sucrerie'' (CITS). In 1950, the production of white sugar started with 399,000 tonnes produced that year. After the establishment of the

European Union The European Union (EU) is a supranational political and economic union of member states that are located primarily in Europe. The union has a total area of and an estimated total population of about 447million. The EU has often been des ...

in 1958, the common agricultural policy led to the regulation of the European sugar market in 1968. In 1987 25 percent of the shares of the company were registered on the Brussels Stock Exchange and in 1989

Südzucker Südzucker AG (, literally ''South sugar'') is a Germany, German company, the largest sugar producer in the world, with an annual production of around 4.8 million tonnes. In February 2014, the Federal Cartel Office imposed a joint fine of 280 mi ...

bought all shares of the company. In 1999 the company decided to install a seed magma preparation installation in the Tienen plant to reduce production costs and to improve the quality of the sugar.Ruytings D., ''Equipment and factory experiences with seed magma production by cooling crystallization'', International sugar journal (Int. sugar j.), 2005, vol. 107, nr. 1284, pp. 666-677

References

Sources

*
Sugar museum Tienen

Sugar industry of belgium
(Dutch)
Purification of Sugar Refinery effluents by the anaerobic- aerobic UNITANK system
(EU)

External links

Sugar refinery of Tienen
* {{Authority control Agriculture companies of Belgium Sugar companies Tienen Companies based in Flemish Brabant

History

See also

References

Sources

External links