Wissington sugar factory

Wissington sugar factory, built in 1925, plays a major role in the prosperity of the area, as an employer, a ratepayer and a user of local services.

British Sugar pays the 1,500 growers supplying beet to the factory approximately £60 million in an average year. A further £1m is paid in business rates.

Wissington factory has a permanent workforce of 200 rising to 330 during the processing campaign which lasts, on average, about 24 weeks. This is followed by a juice refining operation which lasts a further 20 weeks. The factory operates 24 hours a day throughout the campaign and juice refining period.

Up to 3 million tonnes of beet are processed every year. Up to 900 lorry loads are accepted each day and the factory is able to process in excess of 17,500 tonnes of beet a day.

Wissington is the largest of the company's factories with a daily output of crystal sugar reaching up to 1,750 tonnes. Sugar produced at Wissington is stored in seven silos with a combined storage capacity of 97,000 tonnes. Some of the beet processed is stored as thick juice in ten large tanks, to be fully refined into crystal sugar during the late spring and early summer. Stored syrups will be used to produce around 70 million litres of bioethanol commencing summer 2007.

White crystal sugar is dispatched from the factory in bulk road tankers, 25kg and 1 tonne bags. In addition, Wissington factory distributes a range of liquid sugars and screened speciality sugars.

Animal feed sold under the Trident Feeds label, is also produced at Wissington. About 140,000 tonnes of feed pellets are produced each campaign. The factory also produces betaine, a valuable animal feed supplement.

Over 100,000 tonnes of LimeX70 is produced each campaign and sold to farmers to correct acidity, add some nutrients, and improve the structure of the soil. More than 35,000 tonnes of conditioned Topsoil is sold, mainly to the landscaping industry.

The factory provides its own electricity and exports up to 50Mw to the national supply network from a 50Mw gas turbine and a 30Mw steam turbine. The combined heat and power (CHP) plant also provides heat and carbon dioxide to the adjacent horticulture business, which produces tomatoes under 11ha of glass.