Sugar reforms bitter pill to swallow for Mallow

THE melodic voice of Julie Andrews has been assuring people for generations that a spoonful of sugar helps the medicine go down.

But not even the sweetest of Irish produced sugar could take the sour taste from the European Commission’s sugar reform proposals in Mallow, where the country’s last remaining processing plant is located.

There was joy in the area last January when Irish Sugar announced that it was concentrating all sugar processing at the local factory, following the decision to close its Carlow plant. And there was a big welcome for the decision to upgrade the Mallow factory to world class standards at a cost of up to €25 million to enable it to process the country’s 199,260 tonne sugar quota.