AB Sugar holds a 51% stake in Illovo Sugar Limited, the largest cane sugar producer in Africa and one of the world’s lowest cost producers.
Excellent climatic and soil conditions in the group’s countries of operation, accompanied by irrigation from secure water sources, are ideal for the cultivation of high-yielding and excellent quality sugar cane. The group manages agricultural estates in each of the countries in which it operates and in the past season, these estates produced an aggregate of 6.1 million tonnes of cane. In addition, Illovo purchases cane from independent growers. Sugar production in 2009/10 amounted to 1.685 million tonnes, comprising 663 000 tonnes produced in South Africa, Malawi 295 000 tonnes, Zambia 315 000 tonnes, Swaziland 210 000 tonnes, Tanzania 121 000 tonnes and Mozambique 81 000 tonnes.
Downstream products include furfural (used mainly in lube oil refineries for the purification of oils), furfuryl alcohol (used mainly to produce a resin in the foundry industry as a binder for foundry sands), Agriguard (an agricultural nematicide), diacetyl and 2.3-pentanedione (both used as high-quality natural flavourants), BioMass Sugar (a sugar cane-based fertiliser), ethyl alcohol and lactulose (a natural laxative).
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