The Financial Year 2023-2024 has been quite a roller coaster for the sugar industry. From natural factors like excessive rainfall affecting sugarcane production to regulatory developments changing many dynamics, the sugar industry in India had its highs and lows. However, some of the industry giants, who have diversified their operations and production, took the right steps to cope with such challenges. One of the challenges that the industry still faces is related to feedstock. So, we prepared a list of these bstacles and how some sugar manufacturers overcame them using various strategies.

The Challenges

1. Restriction on B-heavy molasses

Towards the end of the calendar year 2023, the Government of India banned the use of B-heavy molasses for the production of ethanol. This step was taken to ensure that enough sugar was available for domestic consumption. The restriction was later lifted with the start of the fresh financial year 2025.

2. Red rot disease on the rise

This sugarcane crop sickening disease spread like wildfire in various regions of Uttar Pradesh. The Western and Central UP regions that are the hub of sugarcane crop farming were affected the most. Almost every sugar plant across the state faced the red rot disease that affected their sugar manufacturing process to a great extent.

3. Less availability of sugarcane

The sugar industry witnessed a high diversion of sugarcane to kolhus, the unorganised jaggery sector. This diversion was quite significant that some sugar manufacturing factories could not meet their annual crushing capacity during this financial year.

The Solutions

1. Relying on C-heavy molasses

There are a number of sugar industry giants who are occupied in diverse operations and co-production of things like ethanol. To combat the problem of restrictions on using B-heavy molasses for ethanol production, these companies banked on C-heavy molasses.

2. Embracing other sugarcane varieties

As Co 0238 sugarcane variety is susceptible to red rot disease, there have been some perceptive sugar plant owners who have identified better varieties for safe and healthy sugarcane production. These varieties include Co 118 and Co 15023 along with Co 98014 and Co J88.

3. Exploring the full capacity of sugar units

Those plants that remained unaffected from the red rot disease, were utilised at their full capacity. With the assurance of steady and continuous production of sugar from healthy and disease-free sugarcane, the gap between the demand and supply of sugar was bridged in time.

4. Focussing on other sugar variants

There have been instances where some sugar manufacturing units maintained their year-on-year growth by diversifying their operations in other sugar variant’s production. Refined sugar and pharmaceutical-grade sugar top this list as they get better premiums as compared to sulphitation sugar.

5. Increasing sugarcane crushing capacity

There have been a significant number of companies in the sugar industry in India that completed numerous modernisations and did debottlenecking. It helped them not only improve their efficiency but also increase the crushing capacity of sugarcane at their dedicated plants.

Additional Routes and their Benefits

●  Some sugar firms that are also occupied in distillery operations and ethanol production, transitioned to maize feedstock to rise above such sugar shortages in future.

● As the sugar price skyrocketed and the industry giants switched to the double refining process (DRP), they also enabled nearly a 6% increase in average blended realisations.

● This last financial year motivated some companies in the Indian sugar industry to leverage digital technologies to improve farm yields.

Conclusion

From sugar production to sales, everything was greatly impacted. Had it not been for heavy rainfall, water logging, and red rot disease, the industry would have run smoothly. But great challenges come with the opportunity to realise one’s potential and outperform their previous self. This is how some prominent manufacturers from sugar industry in India seized such an opportunity last year.