NCA Reinforces Need For Sugar Reform

Tim Jones, senior manager of Just Born, Inc., along with Larry Graham, president of the NCA, met this past week with members of the press to highlight the difficulties U.S. confectioners face because of the domestic sugar program. At the event, organized by the Coalition for Sugar Reform, Jones said he has been “stunned” at the level of government intrusion in the U.S. sugar market. He said in the past four years, sugar prices have gone up 119 percent, which he attributes to the protectionist policies in the Farm Bill. Graham, who is also chairman of the Coalition, told that more and more NCA members have been forced to open facilities in Canada and Mexico to tap in to cheaper sugar supplies. He said 10 to 15 years ago some 10 percent of candy was imported into the U.S, but that figure is now more like 30 percent. Additionally, Graham said a couple of major European candy companies had considered building facilities in the U.S., but ended up in Canada in part because of prohibitive sugar prices. “We see companies that want to sell and manufacture in the U.S. not doing it because of the cost of sugar,” Graham said. Throughout the meeting, sugar users stressed the importance of ending the domestic program, and reinforced the group’s ongoing efforts to petition members of Congress and the Senate to phase out the restrictive and damaging policy.