2022

The negative trend affecting sugar production continued during 2022 due to geopolitical, climatic and above all, energy related factors. Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, in fact, led to a sharp decrease in the natural gas and grains supplying Europe. As a result, sugar prices, which had already been pushed upwards after the post-Covid economic recovery, had a further and more significant surge coming from the considerable increase in refining costs concerned to gas prices. Moreover, farmers began demanding increasingly higher prices for beet cultivation in wake of increases in other competing crops, driving the price of sugar above the $900/ton threshold.