Clewiston, FL – October 20, 2008 – U.S. Sugar Corporation announced that the Clewiston Refinery has refined 13 million cwt. for the first time in its history, far surpassing its previous total production record of 11.34 cwt. set in 2005-06. The refinery hit this important milestone by refining its raw sugar and more than 48,000 tons of Mexican sugar. In addition, United Sugars recently ranked the Clewiston Refinery as the highest quality facility in its organization.

The sugarcane harvesting and processing season started on October 3 and is expected to run until late April. The company plans to harvest 170,396 acres, yielding an estimated 6.3 million tons of sugarcane and producing 13.8 million cwt. of raw sugar. The Clewiston Refinery is projected to produce 13.1 million cwt refined sugar.

President and CEO Robert H. Buker praised employees, “After an excellent repair season, we have had a good, smooth start up in the fields, factory and railroad”.

Three years ago, the Refinery’s capacity was expanded to enable the facility to refine all of the company's raw sugar production. Current capacity is 45,000 cwt. or 2250 tons per day. The expansion along with the enhanced high quality sugar produced by the modernization and consolidation of the Clewiston Mill and a stable team of refinery employees are credited with the record production.

U.S. Sugar’s state-of-the-art sugar factory in Clewiston is the result of a project, termed “Breakthrough” for its dramatic consolidation and transformation of the Company’s two older raw sugar milling operations. The massive modernization project incorporated the best sugar technology from around the world.

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