Topic summary
Beet sugar
Extracted from the Wikipedia article Sugar beet.
Beet sugar industry
Franz Karl Achard opened the world's first beet sugar factory in 1801, at Kunern, Silesia (now Konary, Poland). The idea to produce sugar from beet was soon introduced to France, whence the European sugar beet industry rapidly expanded, due to the difficulties in importing sugar cane sugar because of the continental blockade by Great Britain during the Napoleonic wars. By 1840, about 5% of the world's sugar was derived from sugar beets, and by 1880, this number had risen more than tenfold to over 50%. In North America, the first commercial production started in 1879 at a farm in Alvarado, California. The sugar beet was introduced to Chile by German settlers around 1850.