Company Profile
The Amalgamated Sugar Company LLC
Company History
COMPANY HISTORY
The Amalgamated Sugar Company LLC (Company) originated as a merger, or “amalgamation”, of three early-day sugar companies founded by the same principal interests. David Eccles of Ogden organized the Oregon Sugar Company in 1897. He founded the Oregon Sugar Company of LeGrande the following year. In 1902 stockholders of the two companies merged their holdings and Amalgamated Sugar was two-thirds born. The next year a sister company, Lewiston Sugar, was founded with Amalgamated holding one-quarter interest. The two merged in 1914 and the word “The” was added to the legal corporate name. On December 31, 1996, control of the Company was purchased by the Snake River Sugar Company, an agricultural cooperative with over 1,100 members, and the name was changed to The Amalgamated Sugar Company LLC.
Beet sugar production in the United States preceded the founding of The Amalgamated Sugar Company LLC by slightly less than 30 years. The first commercial success is attributed to Ebenezer H. Dyer’s beet sugar factory built at Alvarado, California, in 1870. By 1900 at least 30 small plants - including two built by Amalgamated Sugar parent companies - had sprung up in eleven states. Another 40 were added within the following decade.
Stormy times of crop failure, poor business practices, inadequate finances, low sugar prices and plant disasters thinned the early throng of sugar companies to a surviving few. The industry, however, survived, and today the domestic beet sugar industry supplies some 40 percent of the nation’s sugar needs. Eight companies operate 31 plants in 12 states.
Over the years, the factories have greatly increased their production capacity. Early plants averaged a slice rate of 600 tons of beets per day; today, the industry average is over 5,000 tons per factory in a 24 hour period. Farmers have made similar advances as compared to that of 50 years ago with per-acre yield now over 25 tons.
The Amalgamated Sugar Company LLC operates three factories with a daily slice rate over 38,000 tons. The Paul, Idaho plant is the nation’s largest, with a daily slice rate of 14,000 tons. Approximately 1,100 members of the Snake River Sugar Company contract to grow sugar beets on about 225,000 acres.
Over 1,300 persons are employed year-round, with an additional seasonal work force of nearly 1,200. Over 80 percent of the Company’s sugar production is sold to industrial users.
The Company markets its sugar under the “White Satin” trademark, with the small emblem representing a stylized sugar canister. Principal markets for White Satin sugar products are the Pacific Northwest, the Inter-mountain West, and the Chicago-Midwest regions of the United States.
Industrial bulk and liquid sugar facilities and, to a limited degree, retail sugar sales facilities are maintained at Portland, Oregon; and Ogden, Utah. The Company also has bulk sugar storage facilities in Colorado. The Company packages sugar for some of its customers under private label.
The Company maintains an extensive agricultural field service organization responsible for contracting, receiving, storing, and delivering each year’s sugar beet crop to the factories. Equally important, agricultural crop consultants, agricultural managers, extension agronomists and a research staff work to ensure that sugar beet growing remains economically profitable and desirable for the growers.
Finally, both the Company and the growers operate under a national sugar program as set forth in the sugar provision of the United States Farm Bill, a unique body of laws which in part dates back over five decades. The intent of this program is to accomplish three broad objectives: (1) to assure consumers adequate supplies of sugar at reasonable prices; (2) to maintain the domestic sugar industry; and (3) to promote the foreign trade of the United States.
Notable Products / Brands
White Satin Sugar