Sugar Price Today - View Live Price South Africa ☑️ (2026)

Raw sugar, also called raw cane sugar, is one of the most commonly traded commodities in the world. It is a soft commodity, meaning it is grown and not mined or extracted from the earth’s crust.

Quick Overview of Sugar

✔️An overview of sugar as an agricultural commodity ✔️The history of sugar ✔️The production of sugar Trading raw sugar as a commodity Factors that affect the price of raw sugar The uses of raw sugar

An overview of sugar as an agricultural commodity

This article covers raw sugar, which is produced from sugar cane, as an agricultural commodity. Raw sugar is categorized as an agricultural commodity, indicating that it belongs to one of the types of agricultural commodities and is produced to be traded on a commodity market. There are six varieties of agricultural commodities, namely:

Dairy such as milk and cheddar cheese.
Grains like corn, wheat, oat, and rough rice.
Meat, including cattle, pork bellies, and lean hogs.
Oilseeds, for example, canola, palm oil, and soybeans.
Soft commodities such as sugar, cocoa, frozen concentrated orange juice (FCOJ), coffee, and tea.
Miscellaneous agricultural commodities, including rubber, wool, and lumber, also referred to as timber, which is wood that has been processed into planks and beams of different sizes.

Raw sugar cane is sometimes referred to as unprocessed sugar or turbinado, referring to the technique in the making of raw sugar where the sugar is spun in a turbine or cylinder. Description of sugar cane Sugar cane (Saccharum officinarum), also spelled sugarcane, is a perennial grass, meaning it grows for an indefinitely long time. Sugar cane belongs to the grass family Poaceae which also includes wheat, rice, and maize. It grows in tropical and subtropical regions. The sugar cane plant consists of a number of fibrous stalks that bear long leaves, shaped like a sword blade. The stalks (3 to 7 metres high) comprise several segments, with a bud at each joint. When reaching maturity, a growing point at the top end of the stalk transforms into a slender arrow that bears a tassel of tiny white flowers. Sugar cane is sometimes described as similar to the bamboo plant, also a type of grass but growing much higher than sugar cane. In addition to raw sugar, the sugar cane plant can also be used to produce biofuel such as ethanol. Other sugar cane products include rum and molasses, and the plant itself can be used as cover for roofs and as feed for animals.

The history of sugar

There are different versions of the domestication of sugar cane. For instance: ‘Sugarcane originated in the Polynesian Islands[1] in the South Pacific about 8 000 years ago,’ according to a website of Selati, the sugar brand name of the South African company RCL Foods Sugar and Milling (Pty) Ltd. The Polynesian Islands are located in the east-central Pacific Ocean and include well-known islands like Tonga, Samoa (formerly Western Samoa), and the Cook Islands. ‘Sugarcane … is thought to have been first domesticated by the Papuans [the inhabitants of New Guinea] in around 8000 BCE. This ancient civilisation was thought to have simply chewed the cane raw,’ as explained by Czarnikow, a worldwide company with 160 years of experience in sugar. The publication, The Conversation, mentions that ‘the first chemically refined sugar appeared on the scene in India about 2 500 years ago.’ Interesting snippets about the history of sugar cane and sugar provided by Czarnikow, Selati, and The Conversation are, amongst others:

Greeks and Romans supposedly used sugar cane in medicine, quoting a general in the Greek army by the name of Nearchus who in 327 BCE said: ‘There is a reed in India that brings forth honey without the help of bees, from which an intoxicating drink is made, though the plant bears no fruit.’ (Czarnikow)
Pliny the Elder, a Roman author, and naturalist, recorded that ‘sugar is made in Arabia as well, but Indian sugar is better. It is a kind of honey found in cane, white as gum, and it crunches between the teeth. It comes in lumps the size of a hazelnut. Sugar is used only for medical purposes.’ (Czarnikow)
Selati mentions that Darius, the Persian Emperor, found sugar cane in India and called it ‘the reeds which produced honey without bees.’
According to Selati, Alexander the Great introduced sugar cane to the Mediterranean from where it spread to Persia (roughly modern-day Iran), Egypt, Saudi Arabia, and the East Coast of Africa. Although, Czarnikow indicates that ‘only a small amount of sugarcane was brought back from Alexander’s conquest in India and traded to physicians.’
The Conversation remarks that sugar was regarded as a rare and expensive spice throughout the Middle Ages.

A shortened timeline of sugar cane indicates, inter alia, the following occurrences:

Late 15th century: The Portuguese introduced sugar cane to the island Madeira, one of their colonies situated in the Atlantic Ocean.
In 1493, the discoverer Christopher Columbus took some seeds of Spanish sugar cane to his headquarters on the Caribbean Island of Santa Domingo.
In 1532, the Portuguese took sugar cane plants to Brazil, at the time a colony of Portugal. At that time, sugar cane and gold had about the same value. A huge number of labourers was needed to cultivate the enormous sugar plantations in Brazil, resulting in a transatlantic slave trade with millions of human beings being shipped from Africa to the Americas.
The British acquired the Caribbean islands Jamaica and Tobago in 1655, making it possible for London, the capital of the United Kingdom of Britain, to become the centre of the ‘white gold’ sugar trade in the eighteenth century.

Beginnings of sugar cane cultivation in South Africa Jan van Riebeeck, Dutch colonial administrator and founder of Cape Town, experimented with sugar cane at his settlement below Table Mountain in the 17th century. He frequently requested the executive directorate of the Dutch East India Company ‘young sugarcane, in cases of soil and already growing’ for his settlement. The first real cultivation of sugar cane started in 1848 when Edmund Morewood planted his first sugar cane crop at his farm ’Compensation’ on the Natal North Coast. Morewood, the founder of the South African sugar industry, produced the country’s first sugar in 1851, using wooden rollers manufactured from Yellowwood and pushed by hand.

The production of sugar

Top global sugar producers

The expectation is that the sugar market will be worth more than $52.9 billion in 2026. Sugar is produced in over 120 countries in the world with the top five producers being Brazil, India, the European Union (EU), China, and Thailand. Brazil became the biggest producer of sugar in the mid-seventeenth century but then lost the top position for many decades, regaining it in the 1970s. The latest sugar production of Brazil is 39 million tonnes, which is about 17 million more tonnes than the production of India. However, Gro Intelligence reported that sugar cane production in Brazil is down an estimated 14 percent in the marketing year ending March 2026. This decrease in production is mainly due to severe drought conditions since July 2026 in the sugar cane growing areas of the São Paulo state, which produces more than fifty percent of Brazil’s sugar cane. Conversely, the production of sugar cane in India is expected to rise by 3 percent and in Thailand by 30 percent in the corresponding marketing year. The largest sugar consumers are India, the European Union (EU), China, the USA, and Brazil. It is estimated that about 70 percent of the annual global supply of sugar is obtained from sugar cane and the remaining 30 percent is from sugar beet. Once refined, sugar obtained from sugar cane and sugar beet are chemically identical. The cultivation and processing of sugar This article focuses on the cultivation and production of sugar cane. Typically, the cultivation of sugar cane takes place in tropical and semi-tropical regions of the world and in places where it is sunny and hot all year with heavy seasonal rainfall. The sugar cane grows during the wet season and ripens during the dry season. Droughts, hurricanes, pests, and plant diseases can be detrimental to the quality and quantity of a sugar cane harvest. The processing of sugar comprises several steps, namely: Harvesting A dry period is needed for harvesting. Sugar cane is harvested mechanically or manually:

Mechanical harvesting occurs when sugar canes are harvested by a mechanical harvester that cut the stalks into short pieces. The harvested plant materials are frequently sieved to get rid of dirt and debris before being loaded into bins or onto trucks to be transported to a sugar mill.

In manual harvesting, skilled labourers are used to cutting the cane with hand knives, hand axes, cutting blades, or pangas. The harvested stalks are put into bins or onto trucks to be taken to the nearest sugar mill.

Processing at the sugar mill

After harvesting, the sugar cane is partially refined into raw sugar at a sugar mill during the following processes:

Washing

The sugar cane stalks are washed thoroughly. Washing is done on belts that are sprayed with water, or in rotating drums into which water is sprayed and in which the cane stalks rotate to remove dirt.

Crushing

The sugar cane stalks are shredded and crushed using heavily grooved crusher rollers.

Juice extraction

The next step is to extract juice from the crushed sugar cane stalks, using a series of mills that compress the sugar cane fibres and separates the juice from the dry pulpy residue, referred to as bagasse. The Institute of Food Technologists (IFT) explains that the initial juice is ‘dark green in colour and is acidic and turbid.’

Clarification of the juice

The cane juice is now clarified (purified) by using techniques such as sulfidation (adding milk of lime and treating with sulfur dioxide) or carbonation (adding milk of lime and treating with carbon dioxide) to remove most of the impurities. The clarification process usually takes several hours, and the clarified juice is eventually boiled in a series of vacuum evaporators until it reaches a concentration of 50 percent to 65 percent sugar.

Crystallisation

The sugar-rich solution is boiled down until it is saturated with sugar crystals, which are created through a process called seeding, which is described as follows by the Institute of Food Technologists (IFT): ‘A milky solution of pure sucrose suspended in alcohol and glycerine is the seed that is slowly added to the syrup. The small grains of sugar present in the solution serve as nuclei, helping to draw out the sugar in solution and convert it into crystals.’ As the mixture is boiled, water evaporates and sugar crystals continue to grow into a semi-solid mixture of molasses-rich syrup and large sugar crystals, referred to as massecuite. This mixture is then moved to a large container called a crystalliser, where the crystallisation process continues by slowly stirring and cooling the massecuite.

Centrifugation

The massecuite is put in a high-speed centrifuge to separate the raw sugar crystals from the molasses. This process is repeated until no more sugar can be extracted. The sugar crystals are then sprayed with a fine yet of water to remove most of the syrup coating, and dried, producing raw sugar of high purity. Raw sugar (unrefined sugar) is now a finished product that can be traded as an agricultural commodity or transported to a cane sugar refinery where it will be refined (purified). Raw sugar is usually stored in large silos and transported in bulk in trucks, and freight trains to buyers or sugar refineries. Furthermore, it is a moisture-sensitive product, so it is typically shipped in lined shipping containers in order to eliminate the threat of condensation and to prevent any interaction with water. Characteristics of raw sugar

It contains 96 to 99 percent sucrose.
A thin film of molasses covers the sugar crystals, giving them a golden colour.
Raw sugar retains a slight hint of molasses flavour.

Trading raw sugar as a commodity

As with other agricultural commodities, to trade with raw sugar you need a recommended, professional commodity broker, who will enable you to trade on a trading platform and provide you with investment advice. Raw sugar can be traded with various financial instruments. For example:

Futures trading

As mentioned, this article’s focus is on raw sugar and its trading as an agricultural commodity. For the sake of completeness, other types of sugar are also traded as commodities. For instance, white sugar futures. White sugar refers to raw sugar which is refined (purified) in sugar refineries. During the refining process, all the naturally occurring molasses content is removed from the raw sugar, giving the sugar its white colour. The White Sugar futures contract is traded on the Intercontinental Exchange (ICE) Futures Europe exchange. It is used as the global benchmark for the pricing of physical white sugar. The contract size is fifty tonnes, and the price is quoted in US dollars and cents per metric tonne. Regarding the trading of raw sugar, the Sugar No. 11 (also written Sugar #11) futures contract is considered the global benchmark for trading raw sugar. Sugar #11 is available on the Intercontinental Exchange (ICE), and the New York Mercantile Exchange (NYMEX), which is part of the Chicago Mercantile Exchange (CME). The contracts are financially settled on the NYMEX and physically on the ICE at the expiry date. Features and specifications of the Sugar No. 11 futures contract

One Sugar #11 contract represents 112 000 pounds of raw cane sugar.
Included in the contract are the shipping costs to the buyer’s ship at a port inside the country selling the sugar.
The purchaser is responsible for any costs involved in the unloading of the product when physical reception takes place.
Delivery months for Sugar No. 11 futures are as follows:
March
May
July
October

The term delivery month indicates when the contract expires, and when the underlying asset, which is raw sugar in a Sugar #11 futures contract, must be delivered or settled. The exchange on which the sugar futures contract is traded also specifies a delivery location and date within the delivery month when the delivery can take place.

The price is quoted in US dollars and cents per metric tonne.
The minimum price fluctuation on the Sugar #11 futures contract is 1/100 or $11.20 with no daily price limit.

A Sugar futures contract is a type of contract in which it is agreed to exchange a set amount of sugar (for example raw sugar or white sugar) at a specified price on a predetermined date in the future. Keep in mind, that futures trading involves considerable risks. If prices of the commodity decline, traders are required to deposit additional funds into their margin accounts in order to maintain their trading positions. Factors like storage costs and interest rates may also affect the price.

Sugar Contracts for Difference (CFDs)

A Sugar CFD is a derivative instrument, allowing traders to speculate on the price of raw sugar. The advantage of a CFD is that traders are not required to take ownership of the underlying commodity (raw sugar in this case). Contracts for difference also use leverage, meaning a trader only has to deposit a small amount in his/her margin account with the commodity broker to gain exposure to sugar prices without the requirement to buy shares, ETFs, or futures. Trading with margin enables traders to increase their potential profits, but also their potential losses.

Sugar exchange-traded funds (ETFs)

Sugar ETFs

trade as shares on exchanges in the same way that ordinary shares do. However, contrary to shares, ETFs allow access to a variety of assets without the need to invest only in one or two companies. Popular ETFs that trade in Sugar #11 futures are:

iPath Series B Bloomberg Sugar Subindex Total Return ETN (SGG)
iPath Pure Beta Sugar ETN (SGAR)
Teucrium Sugar Fund (CANE)

Shares of companies involved in sugar production and sugar refining

Trading shares of public companies involved in the sugar industry is another option to invest in raw sugar as a commodity. For example, Tongaat Hulett Sugar Limited, a South African company that focuses on cane growing, sugar milling, and refining throughout the Southern African region. The company, inter alia, operates four sugar mills in South Africa and a central refinery in Durban, the harbour city in KwaZulu-Natal. Names of other sugar companies, including international companies, can be obtained from your commodity broker.

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Factors that affect the price of raw sugar

In addition to sugar price charts and sugar trading strategies, a knowledge of the factors that drive raw sugar prices is essential to successfully trade raw sugar as a commodity. There are numerous price drivers, such as:

Inflation of the US dollar, the currency used to quote the daily price of raw sugar.
Global sugar inventories are an indication of strong demand or weak supply and vice versa, or a combination thereof.
Weather conditions like drought or too wet weather, and other weather changes, affect the cultivation of sugar cane negatively.
Governmental regulations such as import tariffs and subsidies.
Consumption trends, including health concerns, could lead to sugar taxes imposed by governments and to a decline in sugar consumption, and a drop in prices.
The oil price and biofuels

A biofuel such as ethanol competes with petrol (gasoline) in the transport fuel market. The effect of a decrease in the price of petrol caused by a lower oil price ‘will also mean a decrease in ethanol prices and hence less demand for sugar cane to produce ethanol, thus potentially an oversupply of raw sugar. And an abundance of raw sugar will bring sugar prices down,’ according to Agiboo. Although, the opposite is also true. Furthermore, analysts point out that the use of raw sugar in the manufacturing of biofuels has created a link between ethanol, corn, and Sugar #11, implying that sugar may be considered more of a biofuel commodity than a food commodity in the future.

The uses of raw sugar

Raw sugar can be substituted for refined white sugar in most baking recipes. According to Conscious Food, ‘raw sugar has many benefits that include a higher count of antioxidants and vitamins, a higher molasses content, and several immunity boosting properties.’ Although, raw sugar has about the same number of calories as refined sugar. Conscious Food explains that the coarser granules and the molasses flavours of raw sugar make it an ideal ingredient and flavour enhancer for denser dishes like muffins and cookies. In addition, the coarseness of the grains of raw sugar enhances the crunch and flavour of cookies or other baked treats. Raw sugar can also be used in any recipe that requires it and as a finishing sugar on top of items like scones and sweet pies. It can also be used as a sweetener in drinks such as coffee and tea. The lighter grades of molasses, the thick brown liquid separated from raw sugar in the centrifugation process, are used in candy-making, baking, and producing rum. Low grades of cane molasses are used in mixed animal food and in the industrial production of products such as citric acid and vinegar. And finally, raw sugar is needed to produce refined white sugar. Note: This article does not constitute investment, financial, or trading advice. Please obtain the advice of a professional and regulated commodity broker before making trading and investment decisions. [1] Accentuations in quotations are by the article writer.