Not such sweet news about sugar

With our sugar consumption likely to rise with Halloween candy piling up, we look at the history of sugar and why California’s last sugar beet plant is leaving the state.

The last sugar beat factory in California is closing and the poorest county in the state is taking a huge hit. On Sept. 9, Imperial County leaders declared a state of economic emergency in response to the closure of the Spreckels Sugar Co. plant in Brawley. In April, the plant’s owner (Southern Minnesota Beet Sugar Cooperative) announced the plant closure would come at the end of the processing year and move operations to Minnesota after March.

You can read the full press release from the SMBSC here.

Supervisor Peggy Price, whose district includes the Spreckels plant, cited some of the

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