National Real Sugar Day - Celebrating Real Sugar and our Communities

Happy National Real Sugar Day! Today, we celebrate the real sugar that makes so many of our favorite foods possible, and the hundreds of thousands of establishments across the United States that help bring these foods to our communities.

The Sugar Association founded National Real Sugar Day back in 2022, alongside our members, and we’ve been having a blast celebrating it every year since! It’s a day to shine a spotlight on the plants and people behind the real sugar that we all know and love. It’s also the perfect time to highlight the many roles sugar plays - not only does a little sugar sweeten our food, but it also acts as a preservative, bulking agent, and preservative. When it comes to sugar’s many functions as a single ingredient, there’s really nothing like it.

This year’s focus is on our communities and it’s been amazing to see bakeries, candy and chocolate shops, ice cream shops, restaurants, and other establishments across the country proudly display “We use Real Sugar” decals and stickers to mark the occasion. It’s so fun to come together as a community to celebrate real sugar - the gold standard of sweetness. Without it, so many of the foods we all know and love just wouldn’t be possible.

Real sugar not only plays an essential role in food, it also contributes $23.3 billion to the U.S. economy annually and provides more than 151,000 jobs. Hardworking folks across the United States work tirelessly to make sure real sugar gets from the farm to your table - you can take a virtual farm to table tour to learn more.

More than 11,000 farmers in California, Colorado, Florida, Idaho, Louisiana, Michigan, Minnesota, Montana, Nebraska, North Dakota, Oregon, Washington and Wyoming grow and harvest sugar beets and sugar canes. Georgia, Maryland, and New York also play important roles in refining sugar, making it ready for your sugar bowl.

The communities that bring us real sugar all deserve to be celebrated today for their tireless work. The level of dedication our sugar beet and cane farmers, and industry employees show is unmatched, it’s always inspiring to read their stories. There’s no real sugar without them.

It’s been really fun to see all the delicious looking entries to the Sugar Association's photo baking contest on Instagram - we certainly have some super talented home bakers across the country. We have also really enjoyed seeing all the photos people shared of their favorite establishments that use real sugar, thanks to everyone in our online community who got involved. It’s great to see so many people show appreciation for real sugar.

I’ve spoken before about the importance of a balanced diet - that is a diet that is not extreme. At a time when people are being bombarded with extreme views and recommendations about what they should eat or drink, it feels more important than ever to be able to recognize moderation is key and there’s room in life for a little treat or a sprinkle of sugar to make something nutritious like a yogurt, tastier. Real sugar and the people that bring it to our table deserve to be celebrated -? thank you to everyone that makes our communities sweeter.

Check out this link for ways you can be part of the celebration.