Clewiston, FL — April 11, 2007 — U.S. Sugar Corporation announced that its 2006-2007 sugarcane harvest season is scheduled to be completed this morning, marking the end of operations for the Bryant Sugar Mill. For the last time, the Company's sugarcane harvest of approximately 6.3 million tons of sugarcane was processed at two separate raw sugar mills located at Bryant and at Clewiston. The 190-day harvesting and processing season produced approximately 13.5 million cwt of sugar. For comparison, the 2005-2006 season that was directly impacted by Hurricane Wilma, produced 5.6 million tons of sugarcane and 11.7 million cwt of refined sugar. "Although we escaped hurricane damage this season, this year's crop showed impact from the previous years' hurricanes and an extremely dry year with multiple freeze events. The crop is larger than the last two seasons but still not back to pre-hurricane levels," said Robert Coker, senior vice president, public affairs. The Bryant Mill processed it first crop of 800,000 tons of sugarcane in 1962, producing 165 million pounds of sugar. Bryant ground over three million tons of cane this season, producing 560 million pounds of sugar. "We acknowledge and appreciate the efforts of the Bryant Sugar Mill personnel in setting a high standard for consistent excellence in operations. The Bryant facility ground more than 90 million tons of sugarcane over the past 45 years, and set many production records in the process," said Robert Coker, senior vice president, Public Affairs. "While this is the end of the Bryant Sugar story, it marks an exciting new beginning for U.S. Sugar's high tech sugar manufacturing operations at Clewiston," Coker said. The final phase of the three-phase Breakthrough project to consolidate and automate U.S. Sugar's sugar manufacturing operations at one integrated facility will be completed during the summer season. Beginning in early October 2007, U.S. Sugar's entire sugarcane crop will be processed at the newly consolidated and automated sugar manufacturing facility in Clewiston. The 42,000 tons per day operation will be one of the world's largest and will make U.S. Sugar the lowest cost sugar producer in the United States and Mexico. "Unfortunately, trade agreements and foreign sugar have required automation, and that means the elimination of jobs," U.S. Sugar senior vice president Robert Coker said. "The employees of the Bryant Mill have been an integral part of our family for more than four decades and have done extraordinary work." According to Coker, recent free trade agreements and ongoing negotiations with additional sugar-producing foreign countries mean more foreign sugar entering the U.S. market. The increased efficiency of the new sugar manufacturing operations is aimed at ensuring that U.S. Sugar is competitive into the future. CONTACT: Judy Sanchez ###
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