British Sugar pays the 1200 growers who supply beet to the factory around £40 million. A further £570,000 is paid in business rates.
Newark factory has a permanent workforce of 108 rising to 143 during the processing campaign which runs 24 hours a day for around 160 days depending upon the size of beet crop.
About 1,400,000 tonnes of beet are processed every year. About 450 lorry loads are accepted each day and the factory is able to process in excess of 8,600 tonnes of beet a day.
The daily output of crystal sugar is about 800 tonnes. Sugar produced at Newark is stored in four bulk silos each with a capacity of 12,000 tonnes. Some of the beet processed is stored as thick juice in four large tanks with a combined capacity of 156,000 tonnes to be fully refined into crystal sugar during the late spring and early summer.
White crystal sugar is dispatched from the factory in bulk road tankers but in addition the factory produces and distributes a range of screened speciality sugars. Newark’s packaging plant produces around 800 tonnes of Silver Spoon granulated packets a week. The packaging plant also produces Demerara, light and dark soft brown sugars, and sugar sachets for The Silver Spoon Company.
Molassed sugar beet feed, a high energy animal feed sold under the Trident Feeds label, is produced during the campaign at a rate over 600 tonnes a day. In addition, about 25,000 tonnes of pressed feed and 45,000 tonnes of molasses are produced each year.
Over 45,000 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.
During the campaign the factory produces its own steam from two 50 tonnes per hour boilers and generates all its own electricity with a 10Mw generator. Any surplus electricity is exported to the national supply network.