Sugar is one of the most basic kitchen products around the world, being used in the preparation of millions of sweet and savory dishes and even beverages, such as our beloved coffee. Atvos has the capacity to produce 700,000 metric tons of VHP Sugar. But do you know what that is?

VHP Sugar is raw sugar, which is less humid and still includes the layer of honey that covers the sugar crystal, which gives it a darker color, resembling that of honey. It is the raw material for refined sugar that is sold in markets and used in cooking.

For its production, sugarcane undergoes several stages from its arrival in the industry to the result of the final product. After harvest, Atvos trucks arrive full of sugarcane in the industry. There, the first action is to send a sample of the raw material to the laboratory, to check its quality, mainly in relation to the amount of sugar present, its fiber content, and its moisture. After the assessments are carried out, it is taken to the industry and, subsequently, referred to the mill.

The mill is a piece of equipment that works as if it were a “big cane juicer,” which grinds all the sugarcane to extract the sugar. By the end of the process, approximately 97% of the sugar present in the plant is extracted and stored, forming a substance called “broth.”

The juice is taken to another environment to receive a suitable treatment in which it will be heated to a temperature of 105ºC and then referred to the decanter and mixed with lime to remove the dirt particles. This “cleaner” broth, which has about 15% sugar, then passes through a water evaporation system to increase its concentration. The broth, which previously contained 15% sugar, now has about 60% sugar, becoming a more viscous liquid called syrup.

Only in this syrup stage will the raw material be referred to the Sugar Plant. There, it will go through the cooking process, which takes place in large tanks called cooking pots, in which the rest of the water present in the broth evaporates and the sugar crystals begin to appear. After that, this cooked “dough” is sent to the crystallizer to finish the crystal growth process until its ideal size and, finally, sent to the centrifuge, whose function is to separate the crystal from the honey present in the cooked mass. From there we have our final product, sugar – also called sucrose.

This is Atvos’ VHP sugar, which will be sent to commercial partners, mainly destined for the foreign market, to be refined and reach the homes of millions of people!