FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE                                    CONTACT:   Phillip Hayes
Wednesday, August 19, 2009                                                       202-507-8303

WASHINGTON—In a Wall Street Journal advertisement today, America’s sugar producers begged large food manufacturers to call the American Sugar Alliance (ASA) to be put in touch with numerous sugar sellers looking to unload “extra inventory.”

The advertisement appears exactly one week after a group of industrial sugar users instigated a sugar shortage scare in a national public relations campaign designed to pressure the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) into importing unneeded subsidized sugar.

Their campaign centered around an August 5 letter from multinational food companies to the USDA saying that America would, “virtually run out of sugar,” even though U.S. sugar producers have surpluses they’re trying to unload.

Since last week, the U.S. sugar industry has been unable to locate a single company that doesn’t have enough sugar to make candy, cakes, cookies, or other sweet treats.

“We were concerned by your recent allegations…of a sugar shortage,” read today’s advertisement, which was an open letter to food conglomerates.  “Based on the size of current crops, existing stocks, and near-historic imports from other countries, the USDA just upped its sugar SURPLUS estimates for the year.”

On August 12, the USDA released new data showing that the country’s sugar warehouses have 1,252,000 tons of surplus sugar looking for buyers.  It also upped ending stock estimates for next year—an estimate sugar industry experts expect to rise further as imports from Mexico start flowing in.

“Hopefully your intent was not to intentionally mislead or scare the nation’s media, the general public, or the Secretary of Agriculture,” the sugar producers’ advertisement continued.

Sugar producers have pledged to the USDA that they would be supportive of increased imports if a supply shortage ever surfaces. But that is not the case right now because “America’s sugar producers have plenty of sugar to sell,” according to today’s advertisement.

Calls for higher imports from food manufacturers were a political ploy intended to reduce the price sugar farmers receive for their crops.  Such a move is ironic since, as the ASA point out, leaders from the confectionary industry have boasted that their profit margins average more than 30 percent.

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Link to WSJ Ad