U.S. Sugar’s
Conservationists around the world are concerned about sugarcane farming because, in many cases, sugar mills produce wastewater, emissions, and solid waste that impact the environment. Also, the energy needed to produce sugarcane is high in comparison with other crops such as potatoes and wheat. Fortunately, many American sugar producers are setting the standard for land, air, and water stewardship through modern technology and innovation.
U.S. Sugar is one company in this industry that is trailblazing sustainable best practices in environmental restoration. This sugar mill and refinery in Clewiston, Florida, is a zero-discharge facility with no water or waste leaving the property. In fact, every part of the sugarcane stalks brought into U.S. Sugar’s processing facility is used and reused. The company often stands as a model for its sustainable practices, with a proven track record of more than 90 years farming the land around Lake Okeechobee.
LEVERAGING TECHNOLOGY
“Sugar production in the U.S. is subject—and rightly so—to wage pressures. We pay our workers well,” says Carl Stringer, vice president of IT and employee benefits with U.S. Sugar. “We have environmental concerns, and we have safety concerns, which are all justified. We use technology, and SAP in particular, as a way to compete. We view it as a strategic enabler.”
U.S. Sugar is one of the nation’s largest fully integrated producers of sugarcane and a leading provider of fresh vegetable and citrus products. The company farms more than 200,000 acres and employs approximately 3,000 people, including many in highly skilled, high-wage jobs in a variety of automated environments. With up to 825,000 tons of sugar production a year, in addition to sugar refined at its Savannah facility, it provides nearly 15% of the nation’s refined sugar.
“We view technology as a way to increase our efficiency and lower our costs,” says Stringer. “We’ve just purchased SAP S/4HANA through RISE, along with SAP Intelligent Agriculture, SAP Ariba, the spend and purchasing platform, and SAP Signavio for process analysis. We bought just about everything we could that would help us through our technology transformation.”
PRESERVING THE ENVIRONMENT
“We are keenly committed to preserving the natural beauty of the Everglades,” says Stringer. “Clean water is fundamental to this ecosystem and to our farming business. Every drop of water flowing off our land is measured and regulated and cleaned. In fact, we go beyond meeting regulations, ensuring that our environment is the cleanest it’s been in our lifetimes. The water today is as clean as rainwater.”
U.S. Sugar is also self-sufficient when it comes to energy. Cane stalk waste is repurposed to generate steam and electricity, replacing the need for purchased electricity or fossil fuels to power its sugar-processing facilities. The company has even rebuilt a historic steam-powered locomotive to transport cane and visitors around its operations. The steam engine was retrofitted to be powered by recycled vegetable oil.
All farming and factory operations run on sophisticated machinery that is 100% integrated into the business. This enables U.S. Sugar to manage water, crop, and postharvest logistics more holistically, which in turn allows the company to compete more effectively in the face of volatile worldwide commodities prices.
Stringer believes that SAP’s bold decision to embed AI in SAP S/4HANA will help U.S. Sugar become more efficient and sustainable. The model has been trained on SAP data, and the company’s data is contained within that.
“Access to high-quality data should give our business users the confidence to fully leverage AI,” Stringer explains. “The SAP Business Technology Platform with SAP S/4HANA has the low-code, no-code application development and clean-core concept enabling us to move all the customization out to the edge”.
DIGITALIZING FOR A SUSTAINABLE FUTURE
Stringer goes on to highlight the importance of having the SAP Sustainability Control Tower solution. The company is tasked with reducing the amount of phosphorus leaving its land by 25% every year. Excess phosphorus depletes soils of their richness and also pollutes lakes, rivers, and oceans. Over the last 27 years, U.S. Sugar has averaged 57% reduction, and it aims to do more by using SAP solutions.
Another key advantage is that U.S. Sugar has the largest privately held, mesh Wi-Fi network in the country. It covers all 270,000 acres of its land, and every day, farmers send precision agriculture data back into SAP.
“We use that data. We aggregate it; we create metrics from it,” says Stringer. “SAP’s investment in cloud technology, AI, and intelligent agriculture is going to allow us to natively access data from anywhere on our landholding, which is going to be a game changer for us. The timing is perfect.”
The good work does not stop there. U.S. Sugar is currently exploring ways to become even more efficient through circular production models. One is to make better use of bagasse, the dry, pulpy, fibrous material that remains after crushing sugarcane stalks to extract their juice. The bagasse is comingled in a proprietary method with the soil matter that is extracted from the cane during the clarification process, commonly known as mill mud. The resulting mixture is then returned to the cane fields as an efficient and eco-friendly compost.
As someone responsible for people and IT, Stringer sees beyond the monetary value of digitalization. It also increases user satisfaction and engagement, decreases resistance to change, and strengthens the relationship between IT and the business. Connecting people and technology and caring for the environment is what enables U.S. Sugar to remain faithful to its tradition of innovating for a sustainable future.
Judith Magyar is a brand journalist for SAP.
Fast Company
