Imported Sugar Floods Into Shops

Tuam Herald and Western Advertiser, Saturday, January 11, 1986.

Imported sugar is flooding supermarkets and shops in the West and undermining the future of Tuam Sugar Factory, a North Galway Macra Club claimed this week.

While the region holds its breath in fear of what is considered the third major threat to the factory in less than five years, seven brands of imported sugar are on sale in local outlets, which are only marginally cheaper than the Irish processed varieties, a Cortoon Macra na Feirme survey found.

The glut of imported sugar has prompted the club to embark on a campaign aimed mainly at stockists and suppliers calling on them to deal in Irish sugar only.

"It is deplorable and cannot be tolerated with the threat it means to the Tuam factory and sugar beet growers," Cortoon Macra chairperson Mary Kelly told the Herald.

"It seems for some time but particularly leading up to Christmas that shops and supermarkets in North Galway stocked foreign sugar." she said.

"There is no use in some part of the community pulling their weight in keeping Tuam open, while vital people such as distributors and retailers take such negative action and handle foreign produce."

Cortoon Macra members alone accounted for in excess of 2,500 tonnes of beet supplied to the Tuam plant last year. Their survey found seven foreign sugar brands were available in different outlets in Tuam and surrounding towns, before Christmas.

Member T. J. Gormley, who is also on Tuam B.V.A. Board, said that the B.V A. were aware of the foreign sugar levels for some time and had taken the matter up with Sugar Company executives.

He claimed that some supermarket owners stocking foreign sugar were also pulp merchants who had secured better pulp deals than sugar beet growers.

"Under E.E.C. regulations we cannot stop foreign sugar entering this country," he said. "And it has been coming for a long time in the form of sweets, biscuits and confectionary. But when you find package sugar for sale on Tuam shop shelves it's time to take action."

Mary kelly, a member of Cortoon Macra na Feirme, shows a variety of foreign sugar which is sold in Tuam.