Once
upon a time in Lethbridge, there were beets. Sugar beets. And guess
what, they’re still here!
The
sugar beet industry has shaped southern Alberta from day one. The Galt
Archives even has a photo from Southern Alberta's first sugar beet harvest in 1902 (below). That
same year the first Albertan sugar beet company was born; the Knight Sugar
Factory, located in Raymond. This was only three years before Alberta
officially became a province. We’ve been sugar beet growers longer than
we’ve been Albertans!
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Raymond Sugar Beet And Flour Milling Industries. - 1902 |
However,
despite its early beginnings, beet sugar was not an immediate success. An
article in the Lethbridge Herald dated September 30th, 1950, says that there
used to be a prejudice against beet sugar. Despite the fact that both
cane sugar and beet sugar are essentially the same product – sucrose – beet
sugar was not initially accepted in southern Alberta grocery stores. As a
result, most of the sugar was shipped to Winnipeg. Meanwhile, wheat was
growing and selling very well. Wheat did not require such an expensive
process of refinement as sugar beets did (boilers, for example).
Also, sugar beets were quite labour intensive, and workers were not an abundant resource at the time. For the farmers, it was just much easier to grow wheat. Consequently, in 1914, the Knight Sugar Factory ended its “pioneer business
venture”.
Ten
years later, in 1924, sugar beets began to regain popularity. After the
war, the proceeds from wheat had decreased, while irrigation techniques had
been much improved. This provided a perfect window for sugar beets.
An idle factory from Idaho was dismantled and set up in Raymond the next year
under the governance of the Utah-Idaho Sugar Company.
But,
would you believe it, the next two years turned out to be “terribly
discouraging”. The weather was far colder than usual, and many beets
froze, which caused them to go bad faster than they could process them.
However, despite a rough start, the venture turned out to be a huge success.
The entire produce those first few years was easily sold in Alberta and gobbled
right up. It was a much different reception than the first time
around. The Alberta Sugar Beet Growers’ Association emerged that year,
and with it the co-operation between the farmers and the sugar company
proceeded without a hitch.

![]() |
Sugar Beet Harvest Picture Butte District. - 28 September 1961 |
B.C.
Sugar Refining Co. Ltd.’s fourth factory was built in 1949 in Taber. It
still runs today. Since then, the sugar beet has been an ever present
industry to our farmers (except in 1985 when farmers and owners could not agree
on a selling price which resulted in no beet sugar that year, just like the NHL
this season).
![]() |
Roger's Factory in Taber: Copyright Pat
Kavanagh: http://www.flickr.com/photos/the_kav/5245351467/
|
Today,
according to the Alberta Sugar Beet Growers, sugar beets provide the “only
domestic source of sugar in Canada”, as it is much too cold for the sugar cane
plant. Canada is currently the 31st largest producer of sugar beets in
the world. We have never produced as much as we did during World War II,
however in 2006 “314 farms in Canada seeded 19,488 hectares, according to the
Census of Agriculture”. Alberta is the biggest player in the sugar beet
scene in Canada, with the 80% share of the domestic production. Statistics
Canada has an excellent picture of the distribution of beet farms and
refineries in Canada at this link: http://www.statcan.gc.ca/pub/96-325-x/2007000/m/5022669-eng.pdf
Alberta’s
weather can be a little on the cooler side, with shorter growing seasons, which
creates a smaller beet. However, because we can have long hours of direct
sunlight, our beets tend to have an “unusually high sugar concentration” which
is why we are still successful in growing them. The sugar beet industry
has left an important mark on Southern Alberta’s history. There are over
300 farmers involved in growing sugar beets in Alberta. It has been
around for exactly 110 years, despite many weather hardships. It takes
strength to be dependent on something so unreliable as the weather. But
patience in the bad years and hard work in the good ones has created a rare
Canadian industry that has stood the test of time. And the result
benefits us all; the farmers, the business owners, and the consumers.
![]() |
(The Lethbridge Herald article (March 30th 1962) that inspired this article.) |
I
found numerous articles in the online Lethbridge Herald database (throughout
the entire history of the paper) about the sugar beets industry, which gave me
the information to write this article. You can gain access to this
valuable resource by visiting us here at The Galt Archives.
–by Steffi Reynolds
Steffi
Reynolds is a third-year English major at the University of Lethbridge whose
passion is stories; reading stories, hearing stories and telling stories to
others. This fall she is the archives assistant social media contributor for
the Galt Museum & Archives, earning Applied Studies credit while sharing
some of the stories uncovered in the Archives.