Wholesome Sweeteners Fair Trade Organic Sucanat® (which stands for Sugar Cane Natural), is a whole cane sugar. It's made by simply crushing freshly cut sugar cane, extracting the juice and heating it in a large vat. Once the juice is reduced to a rich, dark syrup, it is hand-paddled. Hand paddling cools and dries the syrup, creating the dry porous granules we call Sucanat. Nothing is added and nothing is taken out!

Wholesome Sweeteners Fair Trade Organic Sucanat is made from 100% certified organic sugar cane grown in Costa Rica. Because Sucanat still contains all of the cane's natural molasses, it's a deep brown color and has a distinct natural molasses flavor that enhances many foods. It can be substituted for sugar in any recipe and it is especially good in chocolate-based recipes, for baking and for BBQ sauces and marinades. It is an excellent source of iron, calcium, vitamin B6, potassium and chromium, which helps balance blood sugar.

The Fair Trade Certified logo is Wholesome's guarantee that our farmers' cooperatives are paid directly for the cane grown and milled. This means that the farmers can compete with factory farms, cultivate the quality of their crops, send their kids to school and build thriving communities.

Raising Cane & Making Sugar

Botanically speaking, sugar cane, Saccharum officinarum, is a member of the Poaceae, or grass, family. Like many grasses, cane is one of nature's best photosynthesizers, converting up to 2% of the sunlight it receives into new growth--and carbohydrates, or sugars.

Cane has been cultivated for thousands of years. Although it is native to Papua New Guinea, organic cane thrives naturally in variety of soils and climatic conditions, but always within the tropics (23°30' north and south of the equator). In some places, it's hot and humid; in others, it's hot and desert dry. Wholesome sources cane from both varieties of climates--the lush tropical rainforests of Brazil, Costa Rica and Paraguay and the arid deserts of the southeastern African continent.

About ten percent of every harvest is set aside for the next season's crop. The cut sugar cane stalks are planted and the cane is sprinkled with one of nature's best organic fertilizers, chicken manure. In Paraguay, for example, each hectare (two-and-a-half acres) of organically grown cane uses about 1.5 metric tons (3,300 lbs) of chicken manure annually. All weeding is done by hand, and nature is allowed to take its course.

Although the growing cycle varies from place to place, it generally takes from nine to 12 months for cane to mature. When the tall, sweet cane towers over the farmers who tend it, harvesting begins, by hand and with machete. The cut cane is trimmed in the field. The remnants are allowed to lay where they fall, slowly returning nutrients to the soil while providing a natural weed barrier and helping conserve the soil’s moisture.

Once cut, the cane is hurried to the mill, where it must be processed within 24 hours or the cane will begin to spoil. At the mill, the cane is crushed to extract its sweet, nutrient rich juice. The juice is collected and water, distilled from a nearby river, is added to make a sweet syrup. The syrup is clarified with slaked lime to remove any impurities, then concentrated through heat and crystallized to produce Evaporated Cane Juice ("granulated sugar") or in the case of Sucanat, dehydrated to produce a porous whole cane sugar. The crystallized cane juice is spun in a centrifuge, which separates the majority of the cane’s natural molasses, (rich in vitamins and minerals), from the sucrose, or sugar crystals. A gentle drying completes the process.

Depending on the environmental conditions, an acre of organ:" ":organically grown sugar cane yields tend to be about 70-80% of conventional farming and the subsequent sugar yield is about 90%.