This summer’s sugar beet harvest could be the last one California ever sees. In April, Southern Minnesota Beet Sugar Cooperative, the owner of the Spreckels Sugar Company factory in the Imperial Valley, announced plans to close the 78-year-old facility. The news comes as a devastating blow to the Southern California region, as it will mean the loss of more than 700 local jobs, reported KPBS-TV.
Southern Minnesota Beet Sugar Cooperative is moving all of its sugar operations to its Minnesota factory. The company explained in a news release that the Brawley facility in the Imperial Valley was no longer financially viable.
“This was a difficult decision brought about by factors largely out of our control,” said Paul Fry, the company’s president and CEO, in the news release. “Despite our extensive investments in the facility, the economic challenges facing the sugar industry have been building for several years as the costs of operating the Spreckels facility have continued to escalate.”…