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Insight Focus
The US cash sugar market has stalled as prices hold steady. The USDA raised 2025-26 sugar production forecast while cutting Mexican imports. Buyers shift to lower-priced beet sugar amid steady deliveries and strong beverage demand.
Cash Sugar Market Stalls as Prices Hold
The lull in the cash sugar market continued during the week ending September 12. Prices were unchanged.
Some 2025-26 sales were occurring, but several customers, including some large-volume buyers, were heading into the new season, which begins October 1, with little, if any, coverage. Ideas of abundant sugar supplies and the expectation that many users will likely carry sugar contracted for delivery during the current 2024-25 market year into 2025-26 were contributing to a widespread lack of urgency.
“With pricing where it is today, no one is going to give up on their current contracts,” one processor affirmed. Compared with a year earlier, 2025-26 prices were 5c/lb to 7c/lb lower for Midwest beet sugar and 10c/lb lower for Pacific beet. Current Pacific, Northeast and Gulf cane sugar prices were 6c/lb lower, and South/Southeast cane sugar was 5c/lb lower than a year earlier. Spot prices were sharply lower compared with a year ago, with beet sugar prices across all regions about 14c/lb to 15c/lb lower and cane sugar prices 9c/lb to 12c/lb lower.
There was an uptick in traditional cane sugar buyers transitioning to lower-priced beet sugar supplies, largely due to the price difference between the two, which has been about 10c/lb to 12c/lb for much of the year.
Historically, the gap between cane and beet sugar was about 2c/lb to 5c/lb, but that has not been the case for at least two years. For many users not bound by product claims, the choice between cane and beet sugar mostly came down to location and which sugar was most easily accessible.
USDA Boosts US Sugar Production, Mexican Imports Fall
In its September 12 WASDE report, the USDA raised its forecast of US sugar production for 2025-26 from August, lowered forecast imports from Mexico, and reduced the ending stocks-to-use ratio to 16.2% from 17.8%.
Domestic sugar production in 2025-26 was forecast at 9.5 million short tons (8.6 million tonnes), raw value, up 42,000 short tons from August and up 167,000 short tons from 2024-25. Beet sugar production was forecast at 5.3 million short tons, up 36,360 short tons from August, and cane sugar at 4.2 million short tons, up 5,000 short tons. If realised, refined cane sugar and total sugar production would be a record high in 2025-26.
Source: USDA
Imports in the new marketing year were forecast at 2.2 million short tons, down 222,000 short tons from August and down 1 million short tons, or 32%, from 2024-25. As expected, nearly all of the reduction was in imports from Mexico, lowered to the minimum allowed under the US-Mexico suspension agreements, at 219,638 short tons, down 219,000 short tons from August. High-tier imports were unchanged from August at 422,000 short tons, but down 488,000 short tons, or 54%, from 2024-25.
Source: USDA
For the current year, lower beet sugar production was mostly offset by higher imports, resulting in only a slight change in ending stocks and an ending stocks-to-use ratio of 19.8%, the highest since 21% in 2001.
Five states reported sugar beet harvest progress, including Minnesota (7% harvested as of September 7), North Dakota (9%), Idaho (2%), Michigan (3%) and Wyoming (6%). The harvest pace for all five states was either at or ahead of the five-year average for the date, except in Michigan, where the start of harvest was delayed slightly due to dry field conditions.
Deliveries of sugar were steady at a good pace. Nearly all sectors were drawing on contracts, but demand from beverage companies seemed strongest. At least one supplier noticed pulls from chocolate makers had declined, which is atypical for the period. But supply hurdles in the cocoa market may be pressuring production for this specific industry.
The corn sweetener market was ramping up to begin negotiations for 2026 contracting. Some were waiting until after Friday’s USDA reports.
