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FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE                                    CONTACT:   Phillip Hayes
Tuesday, June 2, 2009                                                           202-507-8303


WASHINGTON—As food manufacturers lobby the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) to flood the American sugar market with imports and sink prices, a new study unveiled today shows U.S. companies are already paying less for sugar than their counterparts in other developed countries.

Industrial sugar users in the developed world paid, on average, nine percent more for sugar than American candy makers, according to an examination of 2008 prices by Oxford, England-based LMC International. For example, the study found that wholesale sugar prices were 10 percent higher in Europe and more than double in Japan.

Bags of sugar found on grocery store shelves were also 11 percent pricier in other developed countries, with European consumers shelling out nearly 20 percent more than Americans on the retail level, LMC concluded.

Shoppers in France, Finland, and Japan topped the charts, spending about 60% more for a pound of sugar than U.S. customers.  In fact, LMC found that Americans spent just 0.08 percent of their incomes on sugar last year, the lowest percentage in the world.

The study noted that 2008 saw higher U.S. prices than previous years because of weather anomalies, acreage shifts to high-priced corn, and a U.S. refinery that temporarily closed.

Wholesale sugar prices have already dropped by 10 percent since last summer. In addition, raw sugar prices received by sugarcane farmers are well below breakeven levels, according to a May production cost study by Louisiana State University.

Low and falling sugar prices point to a U.S. market that’s already well supplied, and no additional imports are needed, America’s sugar producers told Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack in a May 18 letter.

“Any action to increase supplies is not only unnecessary but could be costly,” ASA wrote.  “Unnecessary because U.S. supplies are more than adequate; potentially costly to taxpayers because any downward pressure on sugar prices could result in commodity loan forfeitures.”  

The letter concluded with an assurance from sugar producers that they would support import increases if there were an actual sugar shortage. “It is strongly in our interest to see U.S. sugar policy run smoothly and to ensure that all our cane sugar refiners and refined sugar buyers are adequately supplied.”