In a new series of podcasts to discuss the issues impacting the bakery indusry, British Baker’s Patrick McGuigan speaks to Peter Hough, sugar sourcing director at sugar supplier Napier Brown.

They talk about the prospect of the EU abolishing sugar quotas, the affect it will have on the market, prices and supply.

Bakers have been hit by soaring sugar prices and supply shortages in the past year caused by poor harvests around the world. Earlier this month, the Committee of European Users of Sugar, whose members include some of the EU’s largest confectionery and bakery manufacturers, said that EU sugar supply was at its most critical level since 2005, “causing extreme volatility, instability and disruption to the EU food and drink industry”.

The Committee called on the EU to abolish quotas as soon as possible and release at least 550,000 tonnes of out-of-quota sugar onto the domestic EU market by November. It also called for a suspension of the duty on concessionary imports known as the CXL sugar duty. The recently formed European Sugar Refiners’ Association has also called for the duty to be permanently scrapped on raw cane sugar.

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