Sugar price

Commonly, a juice drink contains 10% fruit juice, which usually is a blend of several fruits. The 1990 Federal Nutrition and Labeling Act requites declaration of juice content so that the consumer can make a more informed choice (3). With cocktails and juice drinks, added sugars, acids, flavorings, colorings, and nutrients can be used to provide a wide variety of stable products of uniform quaUty. Because drinks requite less juice than 100% juice products, the drinks can be sold at a lower price. 

Production and consumption statistics for sucrose are shown ia Table 1. World production of sucrose dufing 1993—1994 was - 110 million metric tons, of which - 64% was derived from sugarcane. The largest producer is the European Union (EU), followed closely by India and Bra2il. In 1993—1994, the United States ranked fourth in production. World raw sugar prices from 1990—1995 ranged from 20.20—32. l0/kg (10). 

Until a few hundred years ago, sugar was strictiy a luxury item. Queen Elizabeth I is credited with putting it on the table in the now familiar sugarbowl, but it was so expensive that it was used only on the tables of royalty. Sugar production reached large volume at a reasonable price only by the eighteenth century. 

Fig. 1. U.S. sweetener consumption, 1980—1992, where represents sucrose ( ), com sweeteners and ( ), noncalotic sweeteners. In each country of the modem world, sugar production and trade play major social, pohtical, and economical roles. In order to regulate and protect export, import, stocks, subsidies, tariffs, etc, an enormous number of laws have been enacted and agreements concluded on sugar, both domestically and internationally. Also, insofar as sugar is a basic staple for a large population, each country keeps a watchhil eye on sugar production, consumption, and price, which vary widely from country to country, as shown in Table 2 (7,8). Table 2. World Sugar Production, Consumption, and Retail Prices, 1993-1995 ...

Saccharin is the most economical sweetener available. It is 300 times (8% sucrose solution sweetness equivalence) more potent than sugar and its price in 1996 was about 6.05/kg, ca 0.02/(kg-sweet unit). Sugar, on the other hand, was ca 0.77/kg, which is 39 times more expensive than saccharin on equal sweetness basis. Consequentiy, the low cost and high stabiUty of saccharin render it the sweetener of choice for dentifrices (qv), other toiletry products, and pharmaceuticals (qv). 

The success of IGI was a result of high quaHty immobilized preparations developed at a time when raw sugar was expensive (1975). When the technology was estabHshed and further improved, it remained competitive when raw sugar prices dropped. 

Special mention must be made of poly(lactic acid), a biodegradable/bio-resorbable polyester, obtained from renewable resources through fermentation of com starch sugar. This polymer can compete with conventional thermoplastics such as PET for conventional textile fibers or engineering plastics applications. Hie first Dow-Cargill PLA manufacturing facility is scheduled to produce up to 140,000 tons of Nature Works PLA per year beginning in 200245 at an estimated price close to that of other thermoplastic resins U.S. l/kg.46 Other plants are planned to be built in the near future.45... 

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