Mundus Trade & Finance Group

Brazilian Sugar

the sugar cane crushing is in full production of sugar in Brazil during the months of April to December of each year. There is plenty of supply for Icumsa 150, however Icumsa 45 is limited.
Brazil produces below 2 million metric tons of Icumsa 45 and over 6 million metric tons of Icumsa 150. About 20 million of VHP and VVHP (raw sugar for destination refineries) is produced.

Mundus Trade & Finance Group has a secured stock of refined sugar directly from the sugar mills and our warehousing at ports. We encourage our customers to start with containers of 20’ before moving to vessel size loads. Each container can hold 540 bags or 27 MT. However some ports have restriction on the weight, so please check with us first.

Shipping via vessel load has become very economically frustrating due to the vessel shortages around the world.  Therefore shipping sugar in containers is a better choice to many ports.

Feel free to download the specifications below. For any other types of sugar and quotes, please contact us.

ICUMSA 45

ICUMSA 150

White Sugar

White sugar is refined sugar processed from the natural sugars which can be found in sugar beet or sugar cane. The industry name for the sparkling white sugar which is often known to consumers as ‘table sugar’, is ICUMSA 45. The name ICUMSA 45 is taken from the body which regulates sugar testing methods, known as the International Commission For Uniform Methods Of Sugar Analysis. ICUMSA testing allows suppliers and buyers to know with precision just how refined a sugar sample is, and provides an accurate rating system for trading sugar internationally. In most Western and developed nations, the only refined sugar approved for sale to the general public is ICUMSA 45 sugar. Other types of white sugar include ICUMSA 100 and ICUMSA 150, refined white sugars that lack the clear sparkling appearance of ICUMSA 45, but which are nonetheless still safe for human consumption.

 

Why White Sugar?

Since the time that effective sugar refining techniques were developed, white sugar has been a favorite of consumers and governmental regulating bodies alike. The main, and most practical reason for this is the fact that highly refined sugar is the safest type of sugar for consumers in terms of contamination levels and bacteria counts, having very low levels of both. The white coloration does not arise from additives or bleaches, but rather from the processes used to remove contamination from raw sugar, which is a deep brown color, and contains a great deal of undesirable elements, including high bacteria counts which can cause severe illnesses in humans.

How Is White Sugar Made?

 

White sugar is refined from raw sugar, which is usually extracted from sugar cane juice. Both sugar beet and sugar cane are natural sources of sugar, however sugar cane is more plentifully cultivated, and therefore most of the world’s sugar originates from this source.

Refined sugar is essentially pure sucrose, and there is very little difference between sugar extracted from sugar cane and sugar extracted from sugar beet. Only careful chemical analysis can determine whether a sugar sample was made from sugar beet or sugar cane, so practically speaking there is no difference between the sources.

 

Raw sugar is usually transported to the refinery, which may be in a different country from the mill in which it was produced. Some mills are also refineries however, and specific configurations differ from country to country, and facility to facility. When raw sugar arrives at a refinery, it can be in one of two forms. Most raw sugar products are now VHP raw sugar, processed raw sugar which whilst not being refined in the proper sense, contains a higher sucrose content and lower contamination level than traditional raw sugar. It is normally a light brown color, and can be refined in one step using a process called ‘carbonization’.

 

Carbonization involves dissolving the sugar into a liquid solution and then adding milk of lime. The milk of lime travels through the solution, forming calcium carbonate as it goes. As calcium carbonate forms it attracts the colorants and contaminants in the solution, and it locks them away as it falls to the bottom of the carbonization chamber. By the end of the carbonization process, all that is left in the sugar solution is water and sucrose. This solution is then boiled to remove the excess water, and the sucrose is crystallized.

 

If the refinery is working with raw sugar however, there is an additional step undertaken prior to carbonization. Called ‘affination’, this process involves the raw sugar being mixed with a high sucrose syrup to form a mix called magma. This magma is sent into a centrifugal chamber, a chamber which spins at very high speeds. As the magma is spun, it separates into liquid and solid components. The solid components are sucrose crystals, and the liquid is made up of everything else in the magma. The sucrose crystals still contain a level of contamination however, and are a brown color, but the bulk of the brown sticky mess which characterizes raw sugar is left in the liquid drawn off during affination, and is known as molasses.

 

The sucrose crystals are gathered after affination and then sent on to the next stage of the refining process, carbonization.

 

Is White Sugar Healthy?

White sugar is sometimes referred to as being an unhealthy food product because it is refined, and therefore falls into the ‘processed’ foods category. In many cases people misunderstand what this means and think that like other processed foodstuffs, white sugar has had dangerous chemicals added to it. This is of course, not the case. The refining process is designed simply to remove unwanted elements from raw sugar and to create a product which is as close to being pure sucrose as is possible.

 

Ironically, those who choose to use ‘brown’ sugar instead of white sugar do consume more additives, as most brown sugar is simply large crystal white sugar with colorants added. Brown sugar is not to be confused with consumable raw sugar, which is a brown color, but which usually has a completely different texture, ranging from crunchy to crumbly, and has a unique flavor which is due to the molasses still being part of the sugar. Consumable raw sugars do contain more healthy ingredients such as potassium, calcium, magnesium and iron, but they must also undergo various purification processes in order to make them safe for consumption.