# Where does sugar come from?

Source: Commodity Origins, https://commodityorigins.com/commodities/sugar/ — data JSON: https://commodityorigins.com/data/commodities/sugar.json — license CC BY 4.0 (upstream data keeps its license; see Sources below).

Sugar comes mainly from Brazil, which produced 42 million tonnes in 2023, 22% of the world's 187.6 million tonnes (FAOSTAT). India (20%), Thailand (5.5%) and China (5.3%) follow; the top five together supply 57%. The biggest exporter of sugar (HS 1701) is Brazil (47% of world export value in 2024, CEPII BACI). The benchmark price, World raw sugar (ISA daily price), was $0.38/kg in August 2026, up 3% from a year earlier (World Bank Pink Sheet). Sugar cane needs a year of tropical heat and rain followed by a dry spell to ripen, so it dominates in Brazil, India and Thailand, while sugar beet fills the temperate gap in Europe and Russia; the split, and Brazil's option to make ethanol instead, are legacies of colonial plantations and the 1970s oil shocks.

*Sucrose crystallized from sugar cane (four-fifths of supply) or sugar beet; traded raw (No. 11) and refined white (No. 5).* Also called: raw sugar, cane sugar, beet sugar, sugarcane, sugar cane, sugar beet, white sugar.

## Where does sugar come from?

| Rank | Country | Production 2023 (tonnes) | Share |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Brazil | 42 million | 22% |
| 2 | India | 37 million | 20% |
| 3 | Thailand | 10.3 million | 5.5% |
| 4 | China | 10 million | 5.3% |
| 5 | United States | 8.3 million | 4.4% |
| 6 | Pakistan | 6.8 million | 3.6% |
| 7 | Russia | 6.6 million | 3.5% |
| 8 | Mexico | 5.6 million | 3% |
| 9 | Germany | 4.6 million | 2.4% |
| 10 | Australia | 4.2 million | 2.2% |
| | Rest of world | 0 | 28% |
| | World | 187.6 million | 100% |

Source: FAOSTAT Crops and livestock products (QCL), 2023.

Sugar is sucrose, and two very different plants make it. Sugar cane is a giant tropical grass that stores sugar in its stalk over twelve to eighteen months and yields best where a hot, wet growing season is followed by a cool or dry ripening period: Brazil's Center-South, the Indo-Gangetic plain, Thailand's northeast, Guangxi in southern China, Pakistan's Punjab and Mexico. Sugar beet is a temperate root crop sown in spring and lifted in autumn across northern France, Germany, Poland, Russia, Turkey, Egypt's delta and the northern United States. Cane accounts for the large majority of world sugar; beet is the reason Europe and Russia appear at all.

The production figures on this page count centrifugal raw sugar, the crystallized product of both plants. In 2023 Brazil produced 42 million tonnes, 22% of the world's 187.6 million tonnes (FAOSTAT), followed by India with 37 million tonnes (20%) and Thailand (5.5%). The top five made 57% of the total. Behind those figures sit the crops themselves: world sugar cane harvested in 2024 weighed 1.9 billion tonnes, led by Brazil, and sugar beet 293.6 million tonnes, led by Russia (FAOSTAT).

Why Brazil? Cane came to the Portuguese colony in the sixteenth century, but the modern industry was built by policy: the Proálcool program of 1975 taught mills to switch between sugar and ethanol, flex-fuel cars from 2003 gave ethanol a domestic market, and the flat, rain-fed land of São Paulo, Goiás and Minas Gerais allowed fully mechanized harvesting. India's position rests on a different mechanism: a government-set cane price that rewards farmers regardless of the sugar market, so area stays high in Uttar Pradesh and Maharashtra whether or not the world needs the sugar. Thailand's growers sit between cassava and cane and switch with relative prices, and the European Union's beet industry contracted after quotas ended in 2017.


## Who exports and imports sugar?

### Exporters of cane or beet sugar and chemically pure sucrose (HS 1701), 2024

| Rank | Country | Value (US$) | Share |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Brazil | $20.5 billion | 47% |
| 2 | Thailand | $2.5 billion | 5.8% |
| 3 | India | $2.2 billion | 5.1% |
| 4 | France | $1.7 billion | 3.9% |
| 5 | Australia | $1.6 billion | 3.8% |
| 6 | Germany | $1.3 billion | 2.9% |
| 7 | Morocco | $861.4 million | 2% |
| 8 | Guatemala | $757.5 million | 1.8% |
| 9 | Poland | $654.6 million | 1.5% |
| 10 | Saudi Arabia | $599.2 million | 1.4% |
| 11 | Russia | $545.3 million | 1.3% |
| 12 | Netherlands | $518.8 million | 1.2% |
| 13 | South Africa | $492.3 million | 1.1% |
| 14 | Mexico | $436.4 million | 1% |
| 15 | Ukraine | $434.2 million | 1% |

### Importers of cane or beet sugar and chemically pure sucrose (HS 1701), 2024

| Rank | Country | Value (US$) | Share |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Indonesia | $2.8 billion | 6.5% |
| 2 | United States | $2.6 billion | 6% |
| 3 | Saudi Arabia | $2.1 billion | 4.9% |
| 4 | China | $1.8 billion | 4.1% |
| 5 | India | $1.7 billion | 3.8% |
| 6 | United Arab Emirates | $1.3 billion | 3% |
| 7 | Italy | $1.2 billion | 2.7% |
| 8 | Malaysia | $1.1 billion | 2.6% |
| 9 | Algeria | $1.1 billion | 2.5% |
| 10 | Egypt | $1.1 billion | 2.4% |
| 11 | South Korea | $959 million | 2.2% |
| 12 | Morocco | $932.4 million | 2.2% |
| 13 | Bangladesh | $870.1 million | 2% |
| 14 | Spain | $855.7 million | 2% |
| 15 | Canada | $802.6 million | 1.9% |

### Exporters of raw cane sugar (HS 170114), 2024

| Rank | Country | Value (US$) | Share |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Brazil | $16.1 billion | 73% |
| 2 | Australia | $1.6 billion | 7.4% |
| 3 | Thailand | $1.1 billion | 5.2% |
| 4 | South Africa | $349.6 million | 1.6% |
| 5 | India | $340.2 million | 1.5% |
| 6 | Mexico | $298.3 million | 1.4% |
| 7 | Guatemala | $266.5 million | 1.2% |
| 8 | El Salvador | $182.3 million | 0.8% |
| 9 | Dominican Republic | $147.7 million | 0.7% |
| 10 | Nicaragua | $143.4 million | 0.7% |
| 11 | Argentina | $126.5 million | 0.6% |
| 12 | Eswatini | $111.1 million | 0.5% |
| 13 | Colombia | $110 million | 0.5% |
| 14 | Belize | $89.8 million | 0.4% |
| 15 | Mauritius | $88.4 million | 0.4% |

### Importers of raw cane sugar (HS 170114), 2024

| Rank | Country | Value (US$) | Share |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Indonesia | $2.7 billion | 12% |
| 2 | United States | $1.7 billion | 7.6% |
| 3 | India | $1.6 billion | 7.3% |
| 4 | China | $1.5 billion | 6.8% |
| 5 | United Arab Emirates | $1.2 billion | 5.4% |
| 6 | Algeria | $1 billion | 4.8% |
| 7 | Malaysia | $970.5 million | 4.4% |
| 8 | Egypt | $937.6 million | 4.3% |
| 9 | Morocco | $922.8 million | 4.2% |
| 10 | Saudi Arabia | $880.8 million | 4% |
| 11 | South Korea | $859.5 million | 3.9% |
| 12 | Bangladesh | $758.8 million | 3.4% |
| 13 | Canada | $740.2 million | 3.4% |
| 14 | Nigeria | $718.1 million | 3.3% |
| 15 | Japan | $718 million | 3.3% |

### Exporters of refined sugar (HS 170199), 2024

| Rank | Country | Value (US$) | Share |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Brazil | $2.8 billion | 15% |
| 2 | India | $1.8 billion | 9.7% |
| 3 | France | $1.6 billion | 8.7% |
| 4 | Thailand | $1.4 billion | 7.4% |
| 5 | Germany | $1.2 billion | 6.7% |
| 6 | Morocco | $860.9 million | 4.7% |
| 7 | Poland | $643.4 million | 3.5% |
| 8 | Saudi Arabia | $594.3 million | 3.2% |
| 9 | Guatemala | $486.8 million | 2.7% |
| 10 | Netherlands | $476.1 million | 2.6% |
| 11 | Ukraine | $433.2 million | 2.4% |
| 12 | Russia | $417.9 million | 2.3% |
| 13 | Belgium | $348.8 million | 1.9% |
| 14 | Egypt | $327.5 million | 1.8% |
| 15 | United States | $325.9 million | 1.8% |

### Importers of refined sugar (HS 170199), 2024

| Rank | Country | Value (US$) | Share |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Italy | $1 billion | 5.6% |
| 2 | Spain | $700 million | 3.8% |
| 3 | United States | $664.5 million | 3.6% |
| 4 | Belgium | $541 million | 2.9% |
| 5 | Sudan | $525.3 million | 2.9% |
| 6 | Mexico | $488.4 million | 2.7% |
| 7 | Libya | $483.5 million | 2.6% |
| 8 | Germany | $417.9 million | 2.3% |
| 9 | Cambodia | $391.9 million | 2.1% |
| 10 | Sri Lanka | $364 million | 2% |
| 11 | Israel | $362 million | 2% |
| 12 | Somalia | $333.7 million | 1.8% |
| 13 | Turkey (Türkiye) | $328.6 million | 1.8% |
| 14 | Chile | $292.7 million | 1.6% |
| 15 | Netherlands | $291.5 million | 1.6% |

Source: CEPII BACI international trade database (HS22, V202601).

Raw and refined sugar are separate markets. Raw sugar (HS 170114, about 96 to 99 degrees polarization) ships in bulk from mills to refineries near the consumer; refined white sugar (HS 170199) ships in bags and containers, mostly to countries without refineries. In 2024 world exports of sugar (HS 1701) were worth $43.1 billion (CEPII BACI), and Brazil supplied 47% of that value, followed by Thailand (5.8%) and India. Brazil led raw sugar exports in 2024 with 73% of the value, while Brazil led refined exports in 2024 with 15%.

Importers are more spread out. Indonesia was the largest in 2024 with 6.5% of world import value, ahead of United States and Saudi Arabia. Standalone refineries in the Gulf, the Red Sea, Algeria, Malaysia and Indonesia buy raws from Brazil and sell whites into their regions, so a country can be a large importer of raws and an exporter of whites at once. India's exports swing from nothing to several million tonnes depending on the season and its government's quota, which is the single largest source of uncertainty in the trade.


## What does sugar cost?

- World raw sugar (ISA daily price): $0.38/kg in August 2026; 12-month change +3%; 10-year change -14%; all-time high $1.24/kg in November 1974; real high (2024 US$) $7.55/kg in November 1974 (World Bank Pink Sheet).
- EU white sugar: $0.38/kg in August 2026; 12-month change 0%; 10-year change +3%; all-time high $0.78/kg in April 2008; real high (2024 US$) $3.6/kg in January 1975 (World Bank Pink Sheet).
- US domestic raw (No. 16): $0.82/kg in August 2026; 12-month change +1%; 10-year change +30%; all-time high $1.26/kg in November 1974; real high (2024 US$) $7.67/kg in November 1974 (World Bank Pink Sheet).

Prices are monthly benchmark averages that lag the market; not investment advice.

### How it is priced

Two futures contracts anchor the market. ICE Futures US Sugar No. 11 (ticker SB, 112,000 pounds, quoted in US cents per pound) is the world raw sugar price, deliverable FOB at ports in Brazil and a list of other origins. ICE Futures Europe White Sugar No. 5 (ticker W, 50 tonnes, US$/t) prices refined sugar delivered FOB in bulk containers. The difference between the two, the "white premium", is the margin available to a refinery, and it widens when refined stocks run short. Physical trades add a premium or discount for origin, polarization and delivery period, and Brazilian raws are often sold months ahead against the futures curve.

The series used on this page is World raw sugar (ISA daily price), which the International Sugar Organization computes from the No. 11 settlement. In August 2026 it stood at $0.38/kg, up 3% from a year earlier (World Bank Pink Sheet). Its nominal high was $1.24/kg in November 1974, and its low since 1960 was $0.03/kg in September 1966. Two protected markets are quoted separately: the US domestic raw price (No. 16) was $0.82/kg and the EU white price $0.38/kg in the same month. Both sit above the world price because tariffs and quotas keep world sugar out.

Three ambiguities matter. Production here is centrifugal raw sugar, so India's and Brazil's totals depend on how much cane the mills chose to turn into ethanol rather than sugar. Cane and beet tonnages are shown separately and are not sugar. And a world price in dollars per kilogram converts to cents per pound by multiplying by 100 and dividing by 2.2046, so the No. 11 quote and the World Bank series read differently for the same day.


## What moves the price of sugar?

### Brazil's sugar-ethanol mix

Center-South mills can send cane juice to sugar or to ethanol, and they switch with the relative price. When gasoline prices set by Petrobras rise or Brazil's ethanol blend mandate tightens, ethanol pays better and the sugar mix falls; when world sugar rallies, the mix climbs into the high forties as a share of cane. Because Brazil supplies most of the traded raw sugar, a few points of mix equal millions of tonnes of supply, and crude oil prices feed into sugar through this channel.

### Weather in the Center-South and the monsoon in India

Brazil's cane is rain-fed and harvested from April to November; a dry spring in São Paulo cuts both cane tonnage and sugar content, and fires in a dry August can destroy standing cane. India's cane and Thailand's depend on the monsoon, and a weak season shows up a year later in lower crush and export bans. El Niño years have tended to combine Indian and Thai shortfalls with wet Brazilian harvests that slow crushing.

### Stocks-to-use

Sugar keeps well, so stocks buffer the market and the stocks-to-use ratio signals how much cushion exists. USDA put world centrifugal sugar stocks-to-use at — for 2026/27, against — in 2025/26 (USDA PSD). Much of the stock sits in India and China, where policy rather than price decides whether it is exported, so traders discount those tonnes when judging tightness in the free market.

### India's export policy

India is the swing exporter. Its government sets the cane price farmers receive, caps or bans exports when domestic prices rise (as in the 2023/24 season), subsidizes exports when stocks pile up (a policy a WTO panel ruled against in 2021), and directs cane to ethanol under its blending program. Each decision is announced season by season, so the size of India's exportable surplus is the main unknown in every annual balance.

### The Brazilian real

Mills sell sugar in dollars and pay cane growers, wages and fuel in reais. A weaker real raises the local value of each cent per pound, encouraging mills to price sugar for export and to favor sugar over ethanol; a stronger real does the reverse. Because Brazil is the marginal supplier, the No. 11 price in dollars tends to move inversely with the real even when the crop is unchanged.

### Energy and the white premium

Refining is energy-intensive and refineries in the Gulf, Europe and Asia buy raws against the No. 11 and sell whites against the No. 5. When natural gas or coal prices spike, refining margins compress unless the white premium widens, and refiners cut runs. Ocean freight matters too: raws move in bulk on Supramax ships and whites in containers, so the two contracts respond to different freight markets.

### Import policy in China and Indonesia

China regulates sugar imports through a tariff-rate quota, automatic import licenses and, at times, a sliding-scale duty; Indonesia licenses raws for its refineries season by season. Changes in either country's rules shift several million tonnes of demand between the world market and domestic stocks, and Chinese out-of-quota tariffs decide whether syrup and premix imports become a back door for sugar.

### Substitutes and sweetener demand

High-fructose corn syrup competes with sugar in soft drinks where corn is cheap, chiefly the United States, and non-caloric sweeteners and sugar taxes have flattened per-person consumption in richer countries. Growth comes from South and Southeast Asia and Africa, where incomes and processed-food sales rise. Beet sugar in the EU also competes with isoglucose since quotas ended, capping the EU white price.

## How is sugar produced?

Cane is planted from stalk cuttings and cut for the first time after twelve to eighteen months, then regrows as ratoons for four or five further annual harvests before replanting. Brazil's Center-South harvests from April to November, India from October to April, Thailand from December to April, so some origin is always crushing. Mechanical harvesters cut green cane in Brazil and Australia; hand-cut cane, often burned first to strip the leaves, remains common in India and much of Asia and Africa. Cane must reach the mill within a day or two of cutting because sucrose begins to invert as soon as the stalk is severed, which is why mills sit inside their own cane fields.

At the mill the cane is shredded and crushed or diffused to extract juice, which is clarified with lime and heat, evaporated to syrup and boiled under vacuum until sucrose crystallizes. Centrifuges spin the crystals free of the mother liquor, giving raw sugar of roughly 96 to 99 degrees polarization (the sucrose share by weight) and molasses. The fibrous residue, bagasse, fuels the mill's boilers and, in Brazil, exports electricity to the grid; molasses and juice are fermented to ethanol; filter mud returns to the fields. Beet is different: roots are sliced into cossettes, sugar is diffused out in hot water, the juice is purified with lime and carbon dioxide and crystallized directly into white sugar, leaving beet pulp for cattle and molasses for yeast and feed.

Refining turns raw sugar into white. Raws are washed (affination), dissolved, decolorized with carbon or ion-exchange resins, filtered and recrystallized to a color below 45 ICUMSA units, the specification for refined sugar in most contracts. Plantation white made directly at the mill (around 150 ICUMSA) serves domestic markets in India and elsewhere, and very-high-polarization raws sit between the two. Sugar content per tonne of cane runs at roughly a tenth to an eighth, and it falls when cane is harvested wet or too young.


### Harvest calendar

- Brazil (Centre-South cane): harvest Apr, May, Jun, Jul, Aug, Sep, Oct, Nov. North-East cane crushed September–March.
- India (Cane crushing season): harvest Jan, Feb, Mar, Apr, Oct, Nov, Dec
- Thailand (Cane): harvest Jan, Feb, Mar, Apr, Dec
- China (Cane (Guangxi)): harvest Jan, Feb, Mar, Apr, Nov, Dec
- United States (Beet): harvest Sep, Oct, Nov, Dec. Cane harvested October–March in Louisiana and Florida.
- Pakistan (Cane): harvest Jan, Feb, Mar, Apr, Nov, Dec
- Mexico (Cane): harvest Jan, Feb, Mar, Apr, May, Jun, Nov, Dec
- France (Beet): harvest Sep, Oct, Nov, Dec

## What is sugar used for?

Most sugar is eaten, either from the bag or, more often, inside soft drinks, confectionery, baked goods, dairy desserts and processed foods; industrial buyers take the larger share in rich countries and households in poorer ones. The next largest use is fuel: Brazil turns a large part of its cane into ethanol for flex-fuel cars and India diverts cane juice and molasses to meet its blending target. Molasses feeds yeast, rum and cattle; bagasse generates power and makes paper and packaging; and sucrose is a fermentation feedstock for citric acid, amino acids and bioplastics. Sugar's competitors in sweetening are corn syrup and non-caloric sweeteners.


## Supply chain and chokepoints

Milling is tied to the cane field, so processing concentrates in the growing regions: hundreds of mills across São Paulo and Goiás, Uttar Pradesh and Maharashtra, Thailand's northeast and Guangxi. Ownership is concentrated too. Raízen, Tereos, Wilmar, Mitr Phol, COFCO and the Indian mill groups operate clusters of mills, and Brazil's sugar leaves through a handful of terminals at Santos and Paranaguá, reached by road and by Rumo's rail line from the interior. Refineries sit at the other end, in Dubai, Jeddah, Algeria, Malaysia, Indonesia and the ports of Europe and North America, and turn raws into the white sugar their regions consume.

Santos is the chokepoint. Sugar competes for berths and rail slots with soybeans and corn, and in the peak months of the Center-South crush a queue of ships waits outside the port; a wet harvest or a truckers' strike delays loadings for everyone. Thailand's exports funnel through Laem Chabang and the river terminals below Bangkok, India's through Kandla and Mundra on the west coast. Raws to Asia and the Middle East cross the Atlantic and round the Cape or pass Suez, so Red Sea disruption lengthens the route for a third of world trade.

The single points of failure are Brazil's Center-South, which supplies most of the free-market raws, and Indian policy, which can add or remove millions of tonnes with one notification. A dry spring or a wave of fires in São Paulo has no substitute at short notice, because other exporters' surpluses are small and the refineries that depend on Brazilian raws cannot switch feedstock.


## Key companies

- Raízen: miller, Brazil, listed (B3: RAIZ4)
- Südzucker: refiner, Germany, listed (FRA: SZU)
- Tereos: miller, France
- ASR Group: refiner, United States
- Mitr Phol Group: miller, Thailand
- Wilmar International: refiner, Singapore, listed (SGX: F34)
- Balrampur Chini Mills: miller, India, listed (NSE: BALRAMCHIN)
- COFCO International: trader, Switzerland

## Timeline

- 1974-11: World raw sugar peaks above 65 cents a pound. The spike, driven by a poor European beet crop, Soviet buying and inflation fears, remains the nominal record for the New York contract and spurred the corn-syrup industry in the United States. (https://www.winton.com/news/the-sweet-and-sour-history-of-sugar-prices)
- 1975-11: Brazil launches the Proálcool ethanol program. Decree 76.593 tied cane to fuel, giving Brazilian mills the sugar-or-ethanol option that sets the world raw price to this day. (https://bioenfapesp.org/gsb/lacaf/documents/papers/05_ISAF_2016_Cortez_et_al.pdf)
- 2003-03: First flex-fuel car goes on sale in Brazil. Cars that run on any blend of gasoline and ethanol created a domestic fuel market that mills can switch into whenever sugar pays less. (https://www.just-auto.com/news/brazil-reaches-15-years-of-flex-fuel-vehicles/)
- 2005-05: WTO rules against EU sugar export subsidies. Brazil, Australia and Thailand won the case that forced the reform of the EU regime and cut subsidized European exports from the world market. (https://www.wto.org/english/tratop_e/dispu_e/cases_e/ds266_e.htm)
- 2011-02: Raw sugar hits a 30-year high near 36 cents a pound. Two short crops in India and rain in Brazil emptied stocks and set the high-water mark for the modern No. 11 market. (https://www.barchart.com/story/news/24821109/will-sugar-follow-cocoa-and-fcoj)
- 2017-09: EU sugar production quotas end. After nearly fifty years, European beet growers could plant freely and export, adding a swing supplier of white sugar to the world market. (https://ec.europa.eu/commission/presscorner/detail/en/ip_17_3487)
- 2021-08: Raízen lists on B3 and buys Biosev. The Cosan-Shell venture's IPO and acquisition made it the largest cane processor in the world's largest exporter. (https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/0001430162/000155485522000330/csan-20211231.htm)
- 2021-12: WTO panel finds India's sugar subsidies illegal. Brazil, Australia and Guatemala showed that Indian cane price support and export subsidies exceeded WTO limits; India appealed and kept its policies, but the ruling shapes how it structures export aid. (https://www.wto.org/english/news_e/news21_e/579_580_581r_e.htm)
- 2023-10: India extends sugar export restrictions indefinitely. Keeping the 2023/24 crop at home after a patchy monsoon removed the second-largest producer from the export market and supported world prices through the season. (https://www.fas.usda.gov/data/india-india-restricts-sugar-exports-beyond-october-31-indefinite-period)

## Frequently asked questions

### which country produces the most sugar

Brazil produced the most centrifugal sugar in 2023: 42 million tonnes, or 22% of the world's 187.6 million tonnes (FAOSTAT). India was second with 37 million tonnes. The ranking counts crystallized sugar, so it depends on how much cane each country turned into ethanol instead.

### which country exports the most sugar

Brazil exported the most sugar in 2024, 47% of the $43.1 billion of world exports of sugar (HS 1701) (CEPII BACI). Brazil led raw sugar and Brazil led refined white sugar. India's exports swing with its government's annual quota.

### is sugar made from cane or beet

Both. Sugar cane, a tropical grass, supplies the large majority; sugar beet, a temperate root, supplies the rest, mainly in Europe and Russia. In 2024 the world harvested 1.9 billion tonnes of cane, led by Brazil, and 293.6 million tonnes of beet, led by Russia (FAOSTAT). Both give the same sucrose.

### what is the price of sugar today

The world raw sugar price (World raw sugar (ISA daily price)) was $0.38/kg in August 2026, up 3% from a year earlier (World Bank Pink Sheet). Protected markets sit higher: US raw sugar (No. 16) was $0.82/kg and EU white sugar $0.38/kg in the same month. Futures trade on ICE as Sugar No. 11 in cents per pound.

### why does Brazil dominate sugar exports

Brazil combines cheap rain-fed land, mechanized harvesting and the option to make ethanol instead of sugar, which lets mills sell whichever pays more. Brazil supplied 73% of world raw sugar exports by value in 2024 (CEPII BACI). The industry's shape dates to the Proálcool program of 1975 and flex-fuel cars from 2003.

### what is the difference between raw and refined sugar

Raw sugar is the brownish crystal a cane mill produces, about 96 to 99 percent sucrose, shipped in bulk to refineries. Refined white sugar is raw sugar washed, decolorized and recrystallized to under 45 ICUMSA color units. Raw trades as ICE No. 11 in cents per pound, white as No. 5 in dollars per tonne; the gap is the white premium.

### how much sugar is in stock worldwide

USDA estimates world centrifugal sugar stocks-to-use, ending stocks divided by consumption, at — for 2026/27, compared with — in 2025/26 (USDA PSD). Much of that stock sits in India and China, where governments decide whether it is exported, so free-market tightness can be greater than the world ratio suggests.

### why do India's sugar export bans matter

India is the second-largest producer and its government sets a cane price that keeps area high regardless of world prices. When domestic prices rise it restricts exports, as for the 2023/24 season, and when stocks pile up it has subsidized them. Its exportable surplus, which ranges from zero to millions of tonnes, is the largest unknown in each year's balance.

## Sources

- FAOSTAT Crops and livestock products (QCL), 2023. License: CC BY 4.0 (FAO Statistical Database Terms of Use). https://www.fao.org/faostat/en/#data/QCL
- CEPII BACI international trade database (HS22, V202601), BACI HS22 V202601, fetched 6 September 2026. License: Etalab Open Licence 2.0. https://www.cepii.fr/CEPII/en/bdd_modele/bdd_modele_item.asp?id=37
- World Bank Commodity Price Data (The Pink Sheet), 2026-09-02, fetched 6 September 2026. License: CC BY 4.0. https://www.worldbank.org/en/research/commodity-markets
- USDA Foreign Agricultural Service, Production, Supply and Distribution (PSD), 2026-09-06. License: Public domain (US Government work). https://apps.fas.usda.gov/psdonline/
- Harvest calendars (curated from USDA FAS IPAD crop calendars and FAO GIEWS country briefs), curated 2026-09. License: Public domain (USDA) with FAO GIEWS cross-reference (attribution). https://ipad.fas.usda.gov/ogamaps/cropcalendar.aspx

Text last reviewed 2026-09-05. Cite as: Commodity Origins, "Where does sugar come from?", https://commodityorigins.com/commodities/sugar/.