China’s Bright Food Group Co. has been looking to acquire sugar mills since last year, and has just announced the acquisition of a leading Chinese sugar miller in the Guangxi region, the Geuangxi Fengshan Sugar Group. China is the world’s second largest sugar market and is growing at 2% per year. This acquisition will give Bright Food control of 45 million hectares of Chinese sugar cane acreage, and a sugar production capacity of 1.5 million tons per year – placing Bright Food as the second biggest sugar processor in the Chinese industry, and one step closer to becoming one of the world’s top ten sugar companies. The Guangxi Fengshan group consists of 10 mills with a production capacity of 600,000 tons of sugar last season. This purchase comes at a difficult time for the milling industry, as sugar prices fell to a four-year low in September amid a global glut and high domestic inventory. However, it is these conditions that have created opportunities for consolidation moves by larger players.
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