Sugar has been refined in Westchester County since 1853.
Built in 1901, the Yonkers sugar refinery was called Federal Sugar Refinery. It was the fourth refinery built in the county. The Yonkers location was an ideal place for a sugar refinery due to the access to the Hudson River and an able work force. In the early days, the facility produced 3,000 barrels, or 750,000 pounds, of sugar per day.
In 1917, the refinery employed 800 people.
In 1930, the refinery closed for economic reasons. At the time it shuttered, the facility was producing 10,000 barrels of sugar, equivalent to approximately 2.5 million pounds of sugar per day.
In 1938, the refinery re-opened under new management and a new name, Refined Syrups, and marketed under the name of Flo Sweet Liquid Sugar. There was big marketing of liquid sugar, a brand new product that became a staple of the refinery for the next 40 years.
In 1957, the refinery was bought by CPC Corn Products International.
In 1977, it was bought by London-based company Taten Lyle and its subsidiary Toronto-based Red Path.
In the early 1970s, high-fructose corn syrup could be produced and sold at a lower price than cane sugar. From 1975 to 1985, this produced a devastating effect on the U.S. sugar refining cane sugar business, which was a problem for the Yonkers refinery, which at the time produced 80 percent liquid sugar and 20 percent granulated sugar.
In 1988 the refinery was sold to Canada-based company Atlantic Sugars. Taten Lyle went on to buy Domino.
In 1998, Florida Crystals Corp. and Sugar Cane Growers Cooperative of Florida bought the refinery.
In 2001, the refinery bought Domino Sugar from Taten Lyle.
By 2005, the refinery was owned by American Sugar Refining Inc., which bought C & H Sugar, a company based in California.
In April 2007, American Sugar Refining Inc. bought former plant owner Red Path.
Today, the sugar refinery sits on 32 acres along the Hudson River in downtown Yonkers. The facility has 285 employees, 30 percent of whom are Yonkers residents. The annual payroll is $20 million. The facility generates all steam and most of its electricity. Twenty percent of production is liquid sugar (100,000 gallons of liquid sugar per day). There are 4 million pounds of sugar produced per day; 3.2 million pounds are white sugar.
Yonkers is the corporate headquarters for American Sugar Refining Inc. In total (of all the facilities owned by the company), American Sugar Refining Inc. produces 26 million pounds of sugar per day. American Sugar Refining Inc. has five sugar refining facilities: Yonkers, Baltimore, Louisianna C & H based in California, and Canada.
