British Sugar Closes East Anglia Factories After Successful 2025/26 Campaign
February 10 at 9: 00 a. m. ET — British Sugar’s sites at Cantley, Wissington and Bury St Edmunds in East Anglia have finished processing for the 2025/26 beet campaign. The timing follows farmers keeping deliveries moving through a winter of frost and extended rain that challenged lifting and quality.
Company management called the campaign “very successful” after slicing more than seven million tonnes of beet nationally and recording sugar content expected at about 17. 4pc, one of the highest figures of the decade.
British Sugar sums up campaign output and weather response
British Sugar has sliced in excess of seven million tonnes of beet this season, with sugar content expected to be around 17. 4pc and overall yields tipped to exceed five-year averages despite the winter conditions.
Frost in early January, when temperatures plunged to -12C at Marham in west Norfolk, prompted a priority call to growers to deliver frost-affected beet as quickly as possible to reduce quality loss, and 70pc of the crop had been processed by early January when the frost occurred.
Wissington concludes centenary campaign and readies decarbonisation work
Wissington closed its gates for the year on February 10 after concluding its centenary campaign.
Since September, the Wissington site processed approximately three million tonnes of locally grown sugar beet into around 400, 000 tonnes of sugar and multiple co-products, achieving minimal waste while marking 100 years of operations.
Wissington is also the location of British Sugar’s largest decarbonisation project: a record-breaking £43million steam drying plant intended to remove about 50, 000 tonnes of Scope 1 carbon emissions. The plant is under construction, with the steam dryers due to be assembled on site in the coming weeks and commissioned for the start of the 2026/27 campaign in the Autumn.
Bury St Edmunds, Cantley and Newark complete campaign sequence
Cantley and Bury St Edmunds have sliced their last beet following a challenging winter of sub-zero temperatures and prolonged rainfall that tested growers and hauliers across East Anglia.
Nationally, the fourth British Sugar factory at Newark in Nottinghamshire is scheduled to close early next week, which will wrap up the firm’s 2025/26 national campaign.
Daniel Green, agriculture director for British Sugar, said the campaign had a very good start with favorable lifting conditions in the autumn that allowed growers to harvest a substantial portion of the crop before the January freeze reduced sugar contents.
The firm’s monitoring of temperatures across its growing regions allowed managers to work with growers and hauliers to prioritise at-risk fields and move crops into factories before they deteriorated during a slow thaw.
Next confirmed milestone: Newark is due to close early next week; more details expected 12: 00 p. m. ET. If the Newark shutdown proceeds on schedule, the national 2025/26 campaign will be complete and attention will turn to commissioning the Wissington steam dryers ahead of the Autumn start of the 2026/27 campaign.
