Sweet as sugar...beets

I went on an awesome tour of the Michigan Sugar beet processing plant in Bay City, Michigan!

I interviewed Elizabeth Taylor, Ag Relations & Communications Manager at Michigan Sugar for the Michigan Grown, Michigan Great podcast I host for the Michigan Ag Council.  (Just how many times can I say Michigan in a sentence?!)  If you'd like to hear it, plus the other 80 + interviews, they are here:  https://michigangrown.org/podcast/

Elizabeth mentioned they had tours, so my friend Julie (Bay City native and willing travel partner) and I immediately booked one.

It was fascinating.  I absolutely love seeing how everything works, and this tour was so interesting!  Like a lot of factories, pictures weren't always allowed, but I did take them where I could.

First, we drove up and saw all the trucks unloading sugar beets. 

They float on water - so debris and rocks and such fall to the bottom - into the plant, where they are washed, cut into hash brown size, and the evaporation and crystallization steps happen.  (For all the details, go here: https://www.michigansugar.com/growing-production/from-seed-to-shelf/)

My favorite part then happened, and we loved it so much, we watched it twice.

The crystallized sugar is spun around in a centrifuge, which spins out all the brown molasses that didn't crystalize.  It was like magic ... it was like brown, in a spinner, then suddenly it was all white, perfect sugar. 

The bagging part of it was also cool, because it was the same exact sugar going into different bags.  Kroger, Meijer, Great Value, Pioneer - we watched them all bagged!  (Jessica, our lovely tour guide, said that people often ask her why the sugar brands have different prices.  She said that for instance Wal Mart buys so much Great Value sugar in bulk, that they get a lower price than another seller who isn't purchasing as much does.)

We got to taste test sugar right off the line, both brown sugar and white.  Funny thing, though I love sugar in food, I don't really love tasting it straight.

I loved the control room where you could see all the amazing technology behind the process, also.  The people working were all friendly and answered our questions, too.

We went to Cream & Sugar, a new ice cream place supplied by Michigan Sugar and Michigan Milk Producers Association.  Julie and I got ice cream flights and it was some fantastic tasting ice cream.

I love a farm tour!  If it ends in eating the product, all the better. 

Want to know more about the farm?  Like the page on Facebook, on Twitter @carlashelley, or sign up to get the blog by email - the form is on the right side of the page. 

Podcast!

Want to get to know farmers in Michigan? Of course you do!

I'm hosting a podcast through the Michigan Ag Council and talking to interesting farmers around our state.  The first one we're featuring is Jed Welder, Army Ranger turned farmer.  You can listen to the podcast here!

Also this month ... we finished the fourth and final cutting of alfalfa this past week ... just in time to start chopping corn tomorrow!  Kris is very busy organizing all of the million things that have to go right to make this happen.  It's an exciting time of year and we're all happy and satisfied when the harvest is done.  Hopefully that will be this week, if the weather cooperates.  Every single farmer here is saying the same thing, every single year.

This month, for U.S. Farmers & Ranchers Alliance, I spoke at the Leadership At Its Best training conference in Raleigh, NC! This is a leadership development program sponsored by Syngenta for the American Soybean Association and National Corn Growers Association. It was a great group of people.

As for the industry, there was big news that a dairy processing plant is going to be built right in our town.  Good news for all.  We went to the Ogemaw County Fair for the first time, as well as the Clinton County 4-H Fair for the perhaps 25th time. 

Our little calves that were born this year have now moved into group pens, because cattle are social.  They also enjoy watching kids ride on scooters, which is a little-known farm fact.

Aside from our farm, we've really been enjoying our neighbors' farms on Dewitt Road (Chants and Smiths).  Not only do they have sugar beets, which you don't see around here all the time .... 

Can you believe how great these end up tasting?!

but they also planted a beautiful field of sunflowers!  

I love driving by them every day.  This is the first year I've had sunflowers in my garden too (thanks to my friend Ashley, who gave them to me), and I never knew how much I liked them.  

Happy harvest to all the farmers, and happy end-of-summer to everyone!  School starts tomorrow ... but the boys are still helping with calf chores.  Calves like to eat no matter when school is happening. And that's a pretty well-known farm fact.

Want to know more about the farm?  Like the page on Facebook, on Twitter @carlashelley, or sign up to get the blog by email - the form is on the right side of the page.