Sugar market

Table 10. Quality Criteria for White Sugar, According to EC Sugar Market Regulations ...

Among the various types of sugars marketed, the mass consumption of sucrose far outweighs by volume the consumption of other products. Sucrose, also called table sugar, is a disaccharide which, upon hydrolysis, yields two monosaccharides glucose and fmctose. Various types of sugar vary in sweetness (1). 

Isomerases which convert glucose into the sweeter fructose were commercially introduced in the 1960s. Their introduction, coupled with manufacturing technology to immobilize these enzymes, led to the introduction of high-fructose syrup (HFS) in the United States in 1967. Refinements in production processes produced a liquid sweetener that could replace liquid sucrose on a one-to-one basis. At the same time, major upheavals in the world sugar market caused major sugar users to seek such an alternative. 

The isomerization of glucose to fructose opened the way for starch hydrolyzates to replace cane or beet sugar (Dziezak 1987). This process is done with glucose isomerase in immobilized enzyme reactors. The conversion is reversible and the equilibrium is at 50 percent conversion. High-fructose com syrups are produced with 42 or 55 percent fructose. These sweeteners have taken over one-third of the sugar market in the United States (Olsen 1995). 

The sugar market is dominated by Brazil and Asian countries and its price has been quite volatile in the last decade. As can be appreciated from Nasdaq markets reports [71], a ca. fivefold increase was observed from 2004 until 2011 and now, in 2014, the price is about 2.5 times its value in 2007. All this has a great impact on PHA price since as much as 4-5 kg of sugar is needed to produce 1 kg of PHA [72]. 

Varchenko, O. M. (2009). The world and national experiences of the sugar market regulation Monograph, Bila Tserkva, 334 p. (in Ukr). 

Zayets, O. S. (1998). The sugar market issues, trends and practices, Kyiv Naukova Dumka, 365 p. (in Ukr). 

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