For more than a century, the C&H Sugar refinery has been a defining landmark of Crockett, an East Bay town with a population of 3,700, located roughly 15 miles northwest of Diablo Valley College.
Its massive industrial complex built on the Carquinez Strait processes hundreds of thousands of tons of cane sugar each year, and employed generations of local men and women as it shaped the identity of the small Contra Costa County community.
C&H isn’t just a big local employer. Its Crockett refinery processes over 700,000 tons of cane sugar annually, and refines roughly 15 percent of all cane sugar consumed in the U.S…