"The Great Western Sugar Company, founded in the early 20th century by Charles Boettcher and partners, was a pioneer in bringing the sugar beet industry to northeastern Colorado. Colorado’s first sugar mill was built in Loveland, Colorado, in 1901. The company quickly expanded with additional facilities in Nebraska, Colorado, Wyoming and Montana.
The sugar beet was first recognized as a plant with valuable sweetening properties in the early 1700s. Sugar beet growing for sucrose production became a viable industry in the United States by about 1870.
Original sugar beet workers, who settled northwest of Longmont, Colorado had immigrated from Sweden. German-Russian workers were also among those who early on farmed the sugar beet fields in Colorado. Sugar Beet workers also came from Mexico.
Over the next 100 years, following the Colorado sugar beet industry’s introduction, the industry experienced many changes as sugar beet production evolved from a labor intensive process to one that was highly mechanized. Tremendous gains were made in sugar beet seed genetics, which led to increased production and more pounds of sugar per acre.
Sugar beets grow well in northeastern Colorado, because of the availability of irrigation water, and the richness of the soil.
Sucrose from sugar beets represents the principal use for sugar beets in the United States. Sugar beets contain from 13 to 22% sucrose. Sucrose is widely used as a food additive. High fiber dietary food additives are manufactured from sugar beet pulp and major food processors in the United States have used these dietary supplements in many products, including breakfast cereals." (from (
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"The Great Western Sugar Company, founded in the early 20th century by Charles Boettcher and partners, was a pioneer in bringing the sugar beet industry to northeastern Colorado. From the first sugar mill built in Loveland, Colorado, in 1901, the company soon expanded, and built or acquired several additional facilities in Nebraska, Colorado, Wyoming and Montana.
In 1967, Great Western was sold to Colorado businessman Billy White, who in 1974 sold controlling interest in the company to the Hunt Brothers organization. Several years of economic struggles followed, and in 1985 the company, with its six sugar processing plants and five storage facilities over a four-state area, was purchased by British sugar firm Tate & Lyle, and the company name was changed to Western Sugar Company.
In the late 1990s Tate & Lyle, in response to the volatile sugar market in the United States, began seeking a buyer for its sugar holdings in the U.S.
In December 2002, over 1,000 sugar beet growers in Colorado, Nebraska, Wyoming and Montana united to form The Western Sugar Cooperative, believing that the future of the sugar beet industry in this area would be well-served by grower ownership of the company. On April 30, 2002, the Cooperative finalized the purchase of Western Sugar from Tate & Lyle.
Since the purchase, the Cooperative has entered into a long-term lease agreement with American Crystal Sugar Company for the operation of the Torrington, Wyoming, beet processing plant, further solidifying the beet-growing and beet-processing operations in the four-state area under the direction of The Western Sugar Cooperative.
With company headquarters in Denver, Colorado, Western Sugar currently operates sugar-processing plants at Scottsbluff, Nebraska; Lovell and Torrington, Wyoming; Billings, Montana; and Fort Morgan, Colorado. Storage facilities are located at Greeley, Rocky Ford, Sterling and Longmont, Colorado; and at Gering and Mitchell, Nebraska." (from (
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The corporate headquarters is Waymarked at (
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