Price of sugar

[beecanbee]

An acquaintance of mine works for a well known soft drink manufacturer - was their region purchasing manager, but now is their region production manager.

I asked him about the price of sugar and he said to watch for it to go down over the next few months – reaching bottom in January or so.  His logic being – the drought in India has just broken, so production will be on.  The US is no longer purchasing ethanol from Brazil, so cane that was being converted will go back into sugar.  So just in time for Spring feeding and to stock up for the Autumn 2010.

Does anyone have a better (repeatable) method of predicting the cost of sugar, and when to stock up?

[Kathyp]

it goes on sale Thanksgiving and Christmas  :-D

[dpence]

I dunno about predicting price but I noticed it was cheaper to buy 5 5# bags of sugar instead of one #25 at Wal-mart.  Guess they were trying to hook the canning people who buy bulk.

David 

[luvin honey]

I thought soda was made with high-fructose corn syrup. I hadn't even seen any lately made from sugar. Can you tell us the brand?

Not sure of how to predict sugar prices other than what you've already mentioned--Watching the weather conditions in major cane-growing areas.

[beecanbee]

Can you tell us the brand?

Well, since I gave more information on the source of my information than I probably should have, I do not want to state a brand.  But it is a biggie. You know it, and have drunk it.

These production facilities are here in Asia - so maybe they are still using sugar, while there they have switched to high-fructose corn syrup.

[David LaFerney]

These production facilities are here in Asia - so maybe they are still using sugar, while there they have switched to high-fructose corn syrup.

That makes all kinds of sense - sugar is a local product in the tropics and corn syrup is a highly subsidized commodity in the U.S. -  I'm sure the manufacturers use whichever is most economical for them.  In any event I'm sure that sweeteners in general are fungible.  When sugar prices in India go down, they surely effect corn syrup prices in the U.S.

[mtbe]

In the USA, Pepsi and Mountain Dew have re-introduced their soda (pop) with sugar instead of corn syrup.  I think it's labeled as "Throwback".  They are still selling the corn syrup filled style as well.

If you want Coke Cola with sugar instead of corn syrup, go to any Latin grocery store and buy the bottles.  These were bottled in Mexico where they still use cane sugar in Coke.  It is actually illegally transported to the USA.  I think Europe still uses sugar in their sodas as well.  Not sure about Asia.

[BoBn]

That makes all kinds of sense - sugar is a local product in the tropics and corn syrup is a highly subsidized commodity in the U.S. - 

Cane sugar is more subsidized than just about any Ag commodity by levying huge import tariffs. In the USA we pay many times more than than the world market price.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970204409904574350261109973986.html#mod=todays_us_opinion

[fermentedhiker]

That makes all kinds of sense - sugar is a local product in the tropics and corn syrup is a highly subsidized commodity in the U.S. - 

Cane sugar is more subsidized than just about any Ag commodity by levying huge import tariffs. In the USA we pay many times more than than the world market price.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970204409904574350261109973986.html#mod=todays_us_opinion

Exactly correct.  Companies use HFCS not because it's cheap or subsidized, but because sugar is so expensive.  If they removed the artificial price controls on sugar HCFS would likely become an uncommon site in our food.