Redpath Sugar

Redpath’s Sugar is made from sugarcane which is grown in places like São Paulo region in Brazil which is the world’s largest cane growing area. Before the processes changed in the first two decades of twenty first century, fields were burned before harvest to clear leaves for manual harvesting but have been mechanized ever since. This raw sugar cane is then taken to refineries and eventually packaged to put onto the shelves.

Raw sugar cane exported from Brazil and other places directly gets shipped to Canada through St. Lawrence Seaway and ends up into Canada’s biggest cane sugar refinery in Toronto. Redpath then refines, packages and distributes the sugar to retailers across Canada.

The balance between the producer and seller is fairly uneven and that’s because sugar cane growers in countries like Brazil operate at the very bottom of the chain often times in unsafe labour conditions with little to no control over choices. Most of the profit is captured by the billion-dollar companies like the parent company of Redpath which is ASR group, the world’s largest cane sugar refiner, which is owned by Florida Crystals and the Fanjul family.

I believe strict regulations and independent/unbiased auditing would help improve labour standards as well as corporate transparency. Plus, wider adoption of fair trade or direct trade sugar certifications which currently covers only a small share of global sugar production would help improve the balance.