Sugar Giants Form Marketing Alliance

U.S. Sugar Corp. of Florida and United Sugars Corp. of Minnesota said Tuesday they will combine marketing operations, creating one of the nation’s biggest marketers of refined sugar.

U.S. Sugar is Florida’s largest grower of sugar cane, but currently has no refineries. United Sugars of Bloomington, Minn., markets sugar refined from beets by three growers’ cooperatives in North Dakota and Minnesota.

U.S. Sugar’s first refinery, expected to be completed in the spring of 1998 in Clewiston, Fla., will combine its 700,000 tons annual output with the Midwest company’s 1.5 million tons.

United Sugars recently announced plans to market a new sugar brand under the Pillsbury label.

United Sugars is owned by American Crystal Sugar of Moorhead, Minn., Minn-Dak Farmers Cooperative of Wahpeton, N.D., and Southern Minnesota Beet Sugar Cooperative of Renville, Minn.