Napoleon was convinced that sugar beet had an important role to play in the production of sugar. He encouraged farmers to grow sugar beet and offered sugar producers cash and tax incentives to improve the refinement process. As a result, France mobilized its resources to extract sugar from sugar beet. The impact of Napoleon’s actions was felt very quickly.
In 1812, Benjamin Delessert presented the Emperor with a number of perfectly-formed sugar loaves. He was the first to succeed in extracting beet sugar in large quantities. Napoleon was impressed. He awarded Delessert the Légion d’Honneur, issued 500 manufacturing licences and ordered that sugar beet be planted on several thousand hectares. Sugar beet was on its way. Factories opened across France and prices soon dropped as technical advances kicked in.
There is a contemporary cartoon showing Napoleon’s small son, the King of Rome, and his nurse. She is showing him a sugar beet, saying: “Suck, my child, your papa says it’s sugar”.
It is true that in the early days people were suspicious of beet sugar and the triumphant return of cane sugar after the Empire fell in 1814 was a near-fatal blow.
This fall in popularity did not last long. In 1828, there were 585 sugar factories in France, located in 44 départements [administrative districts]. The government provided attractive tax breaks to boost production. But the policy went down badly with sugar producers in the colonies. Their protests against this favourable treatment led the government to abolish tax exemptions in 1843.
The abolition of slavery in the mid-nineteenth century helped things along and sugar factories began to spring up around Europe. In 1900, beet sugar accounted for 53% of world sugar production. During World War I vast tracts of land where sugar beet grew were turned into battlefields. Production came to a standstill in France and Belgium and the consumption figure fell to 26%. While it reached 40% in the 1950s, it was only 30% in 1995.
Whether it comes from cane or beet, throughout its 3000-year history, sugar has been the symbol of wellbeing and pleasure. No other food can pride itself on being so coveted, on having instigated so many adventures. No other food inspires so much creativity in the effort to make sweet dreams come true for young and old alike.