It’s been a bit of a rough time for the $49 billion confectionary industry given the high price of sugar, which reached 45.75 cents per pounds as of last November on the New York futures market. Today, prices are down to 36 cents per pound, and could drop another 10 percent. That’s driven by a pretty great crop this year in cane and sugar beets: The first beets of the season are being harvested right about now, and the sugar content of the pre-pile harvest is coming in at 16 percent, which is two points higher than normal. The U.S. is projected to produce 9.5 million short tons of sugar in the 2024-25 year, with production from beets projected to rise 2.9 percent and production from cane up 1.4 percent.
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