Baltimore sugar refinery

Packaged and distributed via highways and railways, sugar produced in Baltimore travels to kitchens across the nation. This South Baltimore site is the second largest sugar refinery in the U. The acre, building campus was constructed in and opened for business in Baltimore was once home to six different sugar refineries, though only Domino remains.

The industry fell apart in the s when a major importer of sugar and molasses declared bankruptcy. American Sugar Refining, Inc. Workers process approximately 6. As of January , the plant employed workers and generated related transportation jobs. The first step is in plain view for all to see: raw sugar being unloaded from ships by clamshell buckets suspended from two gantry cranes. About 42 ships of different sizes dock at the refinery a year, each carrying, on average, 70 million pounds of raw cane sugar.

They usually arrive and depart very early in the morning and can spend a week or more to unload their cargo. The raw sugar comes from Florida and tropical and subtropical countries in this hemisphere and Africa. Raw sugar unloaded in Baltimore has been through its first processing step at a mill where the sugar cane is grown. The harvested sugar cane is crushed to remove the plant material and extract the juice, which is then boiled to a syrup that thickens and crystallizes.

After the crystals are spun in a centrifuge to remove liquid, they are ready for shipping. With the loss of the large storage shed in the recent fire, raw sugar is now kept in the original three-story shed that stretches along much of the water side of the refinery. The raw sugar crystals begin a roughly two-day journey through the refinery with a warm, syrupy bath that loosens their outer layer of molasses, which is stripped away in a centrifuge and a shower of hot water.

The washed crystals are then melted and the resulting liquid sugar filtered to remove impurities. Bulk shipments of liquid sugar leave the refinery at this stage. The remaining liquid sugar continues on into the Pan House in the center of the refinery where it is transformed into crystals once again. While workers tend to the pans in the heat, one employee inside an air-conditioned control room monitors the whole process on a bank of computer screens. The sugar is again spun to remove liquid and then its on to the Granulator, a long rotating horizontal drum where the new crystals are tumbled through hot air to dry.

Automated packaging lines spread out over several floors of the refinery. With few humans in sight, the machines take rolls of printed packaging, shapes them into bags and packets, and fills them with different types of sugar. I watched as a machine built a box around a stack of over four-pound bags of sugar and moved it toward the warehouse. The whole sugar-making process came to a sudden halt on the afternoon of April 20 this year when a three-alarm fire destroyed the raw sugar shed and ruined much of the sugar.

About a week later the refinery resumed full production with new raw sugar arriving at the dock. Microsoft and partners may be compensated if you purchase something through recommended links in this article.

Found the story interesting? Like us on Facebook to see similar stories. I'm already a fan, don't show this again. Send MSN Feedback. How can we improve? Please give an overall site rating:.