About

Producing this organic, whole-cane sugar is an amazing process which involves a huge amount of manual work. The sugar cane is cut and delivered to the ingenio (like a coffee beneficio but for sugar) where the cane is fed through a series of crushers which separate the juice from the fibre. The used cane fibre is dried and later used as fuel in the furnaces that heat the boilers. The sugar juice then goes through a series of boilers, each time losing more water and becoming thicker in consistency and darker in colour. In the last boiler, the mixture simmers and reduces until it has a caramel-like texture and colour. At the critical moment, the honey is let out into large vats where it is mixed by hand using long metal paddles. This releases the heat and the last of the water. The resulting mass is ‘dulce’ – the specific name for this type of sugar.

We last visited Assukkar in February 2026 and saw the phenomenal work they have done in their relatively new engineering department. All the machinery and equipment are now maintained or manufactured on site, and the older vats from the 1940s have been retired. We have written more about Assukkar in our April 2026 newsletter.