How old is sugar

Grace Company developed the first industrial-scale conversion of bagasse into paper. The Sugar Research Foundation patented colorless sterile invert sugar. The first bagasse diffuser, based on the existing technology of Egyptian diffusers, was installed in South Africa. December 12, marked the last sugar harvest in Maui. After more than a century, Hawaii will no longer produce sugar. Sugar beet and sugar cane yields continue to improve with modern varieties of the plants and advances in agricultural technology.

Vermont M. Austin, Harry. History and Development of the Beet Sugar Industry. National Press Building, Washington D. Robert M. Lawrence Clayton, Grace: W.

Get Social with MoreToSugar. Sugar was only discovered by western Europeans as a result of the Crusades in the 11th century AD and the first sugar was recorded in England in The subsequent centuries saw a major expansion of western European trade with the East, including the importation of sugar. At this time, it was regarded as very much a luxury. In the 15th century AD, European sugar was refined in Venice, confirmation that even then when quantities were small, it was difficult to transport sugar as a food grade product.

In the same century, Columbus sailed to the Americas, and it is recorded that in he took sugar cane plants to grow in the Caribbean. The climate there was so good for the growth of the cane that an industry was quickly established.

Cyprus and Sicily became important centres for sugar production. Throughout the Middle Ages, it was considered a rare and expensive spice, rather than an everyday condiment. The first place to cultivate sugarcane explicitly for large-scale refinement and trade was the Atlantic island of Madeira, during the late 15th century. Then, it was the Portuguese who realised that new and favourable conditions for sugar plantations existed in Brazil, where a slave-based plantation economy was established.

When Brazilian sugarcane was introduced in the Caribbean, shortly before , it led to the growth of the industry which came to feed the sugar craze of Western Europe.

This food — which nobody needed, but everyone craved — drove the formation of the modern of the world. There was a huge demand for labour to cultivate the massive sugar plantations in Brazil and the Caribbean.

This need was met by a transatlantic slave trade , which resulted in around 12,, human beings being shipped from Africa to the Americas between and And of course, goods such as copper and brass, rum, cloth, tobacco and guns were needed to purchase slaves from the African elites.

These were secured through the expansion of industrial production, particularly in the English Midlands and South West. Modern-day banking and insurance can trace its origins to the 18th century Atlantic economy. Meanwhile, the slaves working the plantations suffered miserable lives. When they were finally emancipated in in the British Empire, it was the slave owners who were fully compensated — not the slaves.