19 March 2024

Nordzucker launches thick juice campaign

During the beet campaign, which ran from September to February, Nordzucker did not process the entire quantity of beet into granulated sugar at its factories in Nordstemmen, Klein Wanzleben and Trenčianska Teplá, Slovakia. Some of it is stored in large tanks on the site as so-called thick juice, an intermediate product on the way to crystallized sugar. Now the second round of sugar production begins with the thick juice campaign. The sugar crystallizes from the thick juice in the cooking station. One of the advantages of this downstream campaign is that Nordzucker can meet customer requests for special products and crystal sizes in a more targeted manner.

As part of its GoGreen program, Nordzucker has developed tailor-made timetables for the individual factories on the way to climate-neutral production by 2050 at the latest. In Nordstemmen, the new vapor recompression process is being used for the first time in this thick juice campaign. In special compressors, steam that has already been used several times in the evaporation station is recharged with energy. Used again as heating steam, the process saves energy and CO₂ overall.

At the start of the thick juice campaign, the factory employees test the boilers and turbines for function and safety. Noise may be generated in the plant environment for a short time. The start dates are scheduled for 18 March in Nordstemmen, 25 March in Klein Wanzleben and 3 April in Trenčianska Teplá, Slovakia. The thick juice campaign is expected to last two to three months. After that, the sites’ factories, like all other Nordzucker factories, the locations will prepare for the next beet campaign in fall 2024.