Where, how and by whom were sugar factories first established in the world?

The Persian Emperor Darius, who was on an expedition to India at that time, saw that sugar cane was grown along the Indus River and the people used it to sweeten food. The Persians, who until then used honey to sweeten their food, called sugar cane "the cane that produces honey without bees."

Alexander the Great, who conquered the western parts of Asia 200 years later, took sugar cane, which he called "holy cane", with him, and introduced it to the Mediterranean countries and the eastern coasts of Africa.

The people of India discovered how to crystallize sugar around 350 AD, when they were under the Gupta dynasty.

The Arabs, who invaded Iran in the 7th century AD, were introduced to sugar cane. They learned how it is grown and how sugar is obtained. They also transferred this information to countries such as North Africa and Spain that they occupied. Arab entrepreneurs transformed sugar production techniques into large-scale industry between the 8th and 13th centuries; they created the first large-scale sugar mills, refineries, factories and production areas.

Through invasions, occupations and increased trade relations with other countries, sugarcane reached many places such as Syria, Egypt, Rhodes, Cyprus, North Africa (Morocco and Tunisia) and Southern Spain.

The Arabs spread sugarcane as far as Spain and Portugal in the 15th century. Since it is a high-income plant, both countries started to look for new places where they could grow sugarcane. After the discovery of America, in 1493 Christopher Columbus took sugar cane to the Caribbean Islands for trial plantings. Sugarcane has adapted extremely well to the abundant sunlight, heavy rain and fertile soil conditions here. This harmony was the turning point in the history of sugarcane. Columbus reported to Isabella, Queen of Spain, that sugarcane was growing faster in these areas than in any other part of the world.

After Columbus' discovery of America, many Europeans emigrated to this exciting and promising "New World". Many of the new discoveries there were made by British, French, and Dutch farmers looking for places to grow sugarcane, and they began cultivating cane in Brazil, Mexico, Cuba, and the West Indies. Sugar production was purely for export and all the local people were employed for cane farming.

In 1520, just 28 years after the discovery of America, St. More than 60 sugar mills were established in Thomas. In 1540, the number of sugar factories in Santa Catarina Island, located in the south of Brazil, reached 800, while the number of factories in Demarara, located on the northern coast of Latin America and in what is now Guyana, and in Suriname to the east, reached 2,000. By 1550, the number of small-scale factories had reached 3 thousand.

With these developments came the demand for tools, levers, spindles, and other mechanisms made of cast iron to an unprecedented extent. With the growth of sugar production, specialized trades such as mold making and iron casting developed rapidly in Europe. The establishment of large-scale sugar factories also enabled the development of technology required by the industrial revolution, which started to approach from the beginning of the 17th century. Sugar also enabled the development of industries of foodstuffs in which sugar is used.

With the regions of the Americas where European colonies were established, the Caribbean became the world's largest source of sugar. As industry developed and more workers were needed, slaves were brought from Africa to work in the fields. In this respect, sugar also led to the emergence of the slavery system. Slave labor resulted in lower production costs and prices much lower than those of cane sugar imported from the East. Sugar farming was so profitable that people called it "white gold". Those who had sugar cane fields began to be regarded as gold fields. Slavery was abolished in the 1800s (in 1833 in England, 1863-65 in America) and workers began to be paid.

Today, Brazil and India share the first and second places in world sugar production with 32.6 million tons and 30.7 million tons, respectively.

Before Europe met cane sugar, it used honey as a sweetener, as in other countries. The first to taste cane sugar in Europe were soldiers who participated in the first Crusade in the 11th century AD. Even the German Knights were engaged in the sugarcane trade in the holy lands in the 12th and 13th centuries.

Sugarcane could not be grown in England because of its climate. The British became more interested in the sugar industry with the sugar cane they brought from Spain to Jamaica and the West Indies in 1655. There were 120 sugar refining factories in England in 1750, and they could produce 30,000 tons of sugar a year from sugar cane.

In the late 18th century, sugar production began to be fully mechanized. The steam engine was first used in a sugar factory in Jamaica in 1768, and steam soon replaced fire as the source of the heating process.

While all these processes were going on in the world, it was not known that sugar beet was a source of sugar yet; It was grown as food and animal feed.

Oliver de Seddes, a French agronomist and a famous playwright of his time, determined that a very sweet syrup could be obtained when white beet was boiled in 1575. However, he could not further his work.

First, the German chemist Andreas Sigismund Marggraf realized in 1747 when analyzing beet that this product contained a crystallizing and extremely sweet substance. Marggraff proved that the substance he found in beet was not only similar to sugar, but was the same as sugar obtained from cane, and that sugar could be obtained from beet as well as from cane. This is the date when sugar beet was first identified as a source of sugar.

French student Carl Achard further developed Marggraf's work and succeeded in establishing the world's first beet sugar factory in Lower Silesia in 1802.

Until the Napoleonic Wars between France and England between 1793 and 1815, Europe continued to use cane sugar as the main sugar source. During this period, the British Navy blockaded France's ports in order to prevent the import of goods, especially cane sugar. Thus, sugar entry into the European continent stopped. From this moment on, sugar beet farming began to spread very rapidly in Europe in order to replace cane sugar.

As soon as it seemed to grow extremely well in Europe's climate, beet sugar began to rival cane sugar, and by the 1880s beetroot became the main raw material for sugar in Europe. Today, Germany, France, Poland, Spain and Italy are among the most important beet sugar-producing countries in the world.

British interest in sugar beet began during the First World War (1914-1918), while sugar beet farming spread rapidly in Europe. During the war, when German submarines began sinking merchant ships, Britain's cane sugar supply declined sharply. The British government encouraged farmers to grow sugar beets. Since then, the UK has been producing a significant portion of its sugar needs from beets and is one of the world's largest producers of beet sugar.

After the second half of the 19th century, the beet sugar industry developed in Germany, France, Austria, Hungary, Russia, Belgium, and the Netherlands, followed by Romania in 1876, Sweden and Denmark in 1880, and Bulgaria and Spain in 1898. factories were established. In Turkey, the first beet sugar was produced on 26 November 1926.