We Make Pure White Satin Sugar

Twin Falls Factory

One of the Valley's founding industries, Amalgamated Sugar began processing beets 81 years ago in 1916.
Today, the Twin Falls Factory is grower owned and produces over 4 ½ million hundredweight of sugar distributed to customers in 33 states.
The factory currently generates 60% of its own power.
Its three generators has a total capacity of 8.5 megawatts.

How many homes could the factory's three electrical generators supply power too?

Click for Answer 2,600 all electric homes

Numerous additions and changes over the years have enabled the factory to process ten times as many sugar beets as when they started.
Today the factory can process over 7,000 tons in a 24 hour day.
It requires 9-10 trucks an hour at 30 tons per truck to feed the factory.
From the first Beet Slice Campaign in 1916 up through, December 17, 1998, a total of 33,517,586 tons of beets have been made into White Satin Sugar over 75 ½ operating campaigns.

How many truck loads of beets are received at the factory each day?

Click for Answer 240

How many pounds of beets are sliced every day?

Click for Answer 14,000,000

The average weight of a beet is 2 lbs.. How many individual beets are sliced every day?

Click for Answer 700,000 beets

The juice that is extracted from the sugar beet is purified, filtered, and concentrated to prepare it for the crystallization phase that produces the granulated sugar.
The sugar end of the factory produces 18,000 - 19,000 hundredweight of sugar each day. Since the sugar end is smaller than that required for the beet slice, a small stream of juice is diverted to 6,000,000 gallon juice storage tanks for processing after all of the beets are sliced.

How many pounds of sugar are produced each day?

Click for Answer 1,850,000 lbs

If 2 teaspoons of sugar are added to a cereal bowl, how many cereal bowls could we sweeten every day?

Click for Answer 83,852,691 bowls

So every 3 1/3 operating days we could sweeten the cereal bowls of every man, woman and child in the United States.

How much sugar is there in one 2# sugar beet?

Click for Answer 29 Teaspoons

How much water is there in one 2# sugar beet?

Click for Answer 2.9 Cups

What is the value of each 2# sugar beet considering sugar and by-products?

Click for Answer About 10 ¢

The part of the beet that remains after the sugar has been extracted is pressed to remove excess moisture, and then dried in a rotary drum dryer to make a very popular livestock feed with local dairies and feedlots.
Approximately 16 - 20 tons of dried pulp in the form of shreds and/or pellets are produced each hour, and daily rates over 400 tons are typical.

How many cows can you feed from one days' production of beet pulp?

Click for Answer 160,000 at 5 lbs/ animal

In April, approximately 270 growers plant about 41,000 acres in sugar beets - not an easy crop to grow.
The Ag Dept. has 17 employees on staff to assist, advise and make recommendations on all aspects of sugar beet production.
Each year Amalgamated purchases around 900,000 tons of beets.
The value of the crop varies from year to year depending on the sales price of refined sugar on the market.
A typical crop is valued at $35 to 40 million paid to Magic Valley growers.

Harvest begins in September.
There are twelve sugar beet receiving stations covering a substantial southeastern Idaho area.
During the peak harvest time, the Ag Dept. hires 64 more employees to receive the crop. The crop is then reloaded and trucked to the factory.

Amalgamated Sugar's impact on the Magic Valley is considerable.
Amalgamated employs approximately 280 people full time and an additionsl 125 during beet slice, and their paychecks support many business in the Magic Valley.
The factory purchases approximately 3 to 4 million dollars worht of goods and services from 237 differnt vendors in the Valley.
The research lab developed a high tech separator.
In the separator cells are distribution plates which are manufactured by vendors right here in the Magic Valley.
Since 1992, this has meant an additional $1 million spent in the Valley.
The total spent on environmental projects since 1994 has been approximately $4 million.

So the next time you pass the factory or find yourself behind a beet truck, remember, the employees of The Amalgamated Sugar Company are working just to make your life a little sweeter.