Sweet Facts
Here’s some information that would make great trivia questions and answers or even a Jeopardy answer.
Q: What country produces the most sugar?
A: Brazil. The 30 million tons of sugar that Brazil produced in 2006 made up 20% of the world’s total sugar production.
Never knew that about half of the Brazilian sugar produced every year is held back for ethanol production in Brazil, and a substantial amount of raw sugar is consumed by Brazilians. But sugar is a huge commodities export for that country and it is big business all over the world. The different qualities of sugar are sorted and graded before they are sold. Most sugar exported by Brazil is raw or centrifugal sugar, and there are different Sugar Types sold depending upon the type of refining used.
The grade that most Americans get for their highly refined white sugar crystals served on kitchen table all over the U.S. is called ICUMSA 45, but there is a whole range of the grades, including ICUMSA 150 - the type that most exported sugar is graded, and ICUMSA 400 - 1500 which is raw brown sugar that needs to be refined in the country that buys it.
So now you know a little more about sugar!