 | |
| Company type | Agricultural marketing cooperative |
|---|---|
| Founded | 1906 |
| Headquarters | |
Area served | Michigan |
| Products | Sugar |
| Members | 1,000+ |
Number of employees | Year round 700, plus 1,500 seasonal |
| Website | michigansugar |
Michigan Sugar Company is an agricultural cooperative, based in Bay City, Michigan, that specializes in the processing of beet sugar. Founded in 1906, Michigan Sugar sells beet sugar under the brand names Big Chief and Pioneer.[1]
Michigan Sugar operates four beet sugar factories, located in Bay City, Caro, Croswell, and Sebewaing, and operates three shipping and distribution centers in Michigan and the adjacent state of Ohio. The firm has a permanent employment headcount of 700 employees, to which are added 1,500 additional seasonal employees during the times of year when sugar beets are harvested and processed.[1]
During much of its history, Michigan Sugar was a publicly traded, private-sector firm. It was later a subsidiary of Imperial Sugar; after the 2001 bankruptcy of its former parent firm, Michigan Sugar became a cooperative in February 2002. Since that time the cooperative has been owned by a consortium of more than 1,000 sugar beet farmers, mostly located in Michigan's Thumb, who grow beets for processing.[1]
Michigan is a large producer of beet sugar:
"From farm fields to your table, the process of turning a sugarbeet seed into all-natural sugar takes many steps – some on the farm and others in the factory. It starts with planting the seeds each spring, continues through harvest in the fall and wraps up during an annual sugarbeet processing campaign at Michigan Sugar Company’s factories in Bay City, Caro, Croswell and Sebewaing."[2]
Under the trade names of Pioneer Sugar and Big Chief Sugar, Michigan Sugar's plants "produce roughly 1.2 billion pounds of sugar each year."[2]