The Sidney Holly Sugar's Technical Services Division, composed of the main factory lab and the tare lab, exists to support the factory in its quest to consistently produce high quality sugar. The Technical Services Division, performing in its role of quality assurance for the factory, has been a part of the Sidney plant since the birth of the factory in 1925. Tare lab workers determine sugar content and tare from individual growers during harvest. Members of the technical services division's main factory lab conduct tests and monitor the entire extraction process throughout the factory, from the time the beets enter the plant via the wet hopper until the final white sugar product is shipped to customers throughout the country. Technical services ensures the factory crews produce a consistent, high quality sugar.

To perform this quality control, lab technicians produce five legal sized pages of information on a daily basis, and make approximately 450 analyses every day during campaign on the various stages of the extraction process. Sixteen lab workers, four to a shift, conduct these tests and analyses, keeping factory crews updated on a 24-hour basis with test results. This allows factory personnel to make any needed adjustments in the extraction process to continue to produce a top quality product.

Dave Cummings, technical services manager, points out that although the technical services division has always been a part of the factory, lab workers did very little process testing prior to the mid '60s, as control and efficiency were not as much of a factor in the process as they are today. As well, the entire testing process was cumbersome and often not very accurate. "The chemistry involved with the early testing required quite a lot of time," Cummings states. "Often the testing gave answers that were not always accurate or precise."

All that changed by the mid '60s. Sugar and tare became a factor, as did control and efficiency. The factory built its tare lab in 1967, and began buying beets from individual growers based on sugar content and tare, rather than just buying beets at a flat rate per ton, as they had done previously. Factory management also renovated the main factory lab in the '70s, and the technical services division began more intense, sophisticated testing of the entire sugar extraction process. With the advent of high quality computer technology at the factory, lab personnel could conduct tests and receive results in a few minutes, whereas those same tests took hours or days to complete in the past.

The factory lab responsibilities at the Sidney plant begins in the tare lab in the fall, during beet harvest. The tare lab, determining the quality of the incoming crop, tests individual grower sugar content and tare. The tare lab remains open for the length of the harvest, generally about six weeks during September and October. Workers from the receiving stations collect individual grower samples, and the tare lab tests these samples on a daily basis. Tare lab workers, composed of a day shift and a night shift, look at approximately 2,400 beet samples per day.

The main factory lab runs a three shift, 24-hour day during campaign. Factory personnel rely on quality control data they receive from the lab, so lab crews run tests on every major process point throughout the factory. "Every year is different," Cummings says. "The quality of beets differs every year, and the quality of beets determines how the factory runs and dictates how frequently we test certain process points. The function of the lab is to support the factory, so we test whatever needs testing as frequently as necessary to ensure a quality product."

In years when the factory must deal with low quality beets, lab crews may make more tests in some areas, while high quality beets may require more testing in a different area. "We do whatever it takes to support the factory," Cummings advises. "That's why we're here."

Sidney's Holly Sugar has several critical process points that lab technicians check frequently. Technicians begin with the incoming beets, assessing the amount of sugar in each load. This gives factory personnel an idea of what the plant can expect for sugar. Testing sugar content as beets enter the factory also tells management how much sugar the beets have lost in the storage piles over the winter.

Technicians consider the diffuser the second critical testing point. They monitor for both bacteria content in the raw juice and for process control by taking impurity measurements. These measurements alert production crews to potential problems and allow them to adjust the process to maintain the proper conditions within the diffuser.

The next important steps in the testing process include the purification process and the carbonation process. Lab workers monitor both the purification and the carbonation carefully. During this process, calcium oxide destroys or captures non-sugar impurities, which sink to the bottom of the carbonation tanks. The purified and carbonated thin juice then proceeds to the evaporators, another important testing point for lab technicians.

Sidney's Holly Sugar plant uses multiple effect evaporation, a four- or five-step process. This multiple effect evaporation saves energy as well as allowing production crews to more quickly achieve the desired solid levels. The evaporation process, which attains temperatures of 265 degrees F, completely sterilizes the sugar by killing any remaining microbes. Factory crews repeat the evaporation process several times, going from about 15% solids with initial evaporation to about 70% solids by the end of the process. Lab technicians analyze the process, and are there to test the end product when these solids are boiled and crystallized to make white sugar.

The technicians' work does not end with the white sugar product. "Sugar isn't just sugar," Cummings explains. "We need to test the final product to ensure that it meets buyer requirements."

Buyer requirements include sugar color and granulation. Large companies such as Nestles and Kelloggs require a sugar color rated at 35 RBU's (a color measurement) or less. Holly Sugar consistently produces a sugar with a color rating averaging near 22 RBU's.

Large companies also want sugar of a particular granulation, as granulation is the key to the dissolving process. Lab technicians test granulation before sugar enters the storage bin, and retest it again before shipping.

"Sugar is abrasive, so it breaks like rocks or pebbles," Cummings explains. "Granulation coming out of the bins is finer than the granulation entering the bins, due to the sugar breaking into smaller crystals in storage. We put the sugar into the bin at a higher crystal than the customer wants, because we know sugar comes back out of the bin as smaller crystals."

For this reason, lab workers test granulation before packaging or shipping by bulk. Warehouse workers use different sized screens to sift bulk sugar according to customer specifications. They also use a unique packaging code, changed daily, to identify quality and granulation of the sugar packaged each day.

The technical services division runs one day shift over the summer.