The Vierverlaten sugar factory is one of the two remaining beet sugar factories of the Netherlands. It is located in the hamlet Vierverlaten near Hoogkerk, in the municipality and province of Groningen, Netherlands. It mainly processes sugar beets to produce white sugar. The factory used to be part of the independent company Noord-Nederlandsche Beetwortelsuikerfabriek but later became part of the Centrale Suiker Maatschappij (CSM). Currently, it is a part of the cooperative Cosun Beet Company.
Context The Dutch beet sugar industry began to develop in the second half of the 19th century. In time, it began to process sugar beets from Frisia. The beets had to be transported by boat or rail. The costs of the transportation quickly added up, presenting an opportunity for the establishment of a local sugar factory that could acquire the beets at a lower price.
In the early 1890s, the Frisian Society for Agriculture () appointed a committee to investigate the possibility of founding a cooperative beet sugar factory. The committee concluded that such a factory would be advantageous for Frisian agriculture, but it also concluded that there were not enough farmers who were willing to invest.
A similar initiative for a cooperative sugar factory was started by the Groningen and Westerkwartier industrial societies. These societies performed several experiments showing that the soil in Groningen was suitable to sugar beet cultivation. However, a plan to establish a bank to finance the shares of the potential owners did not convince local farmers.
Some industrialists then took up the plan and founded the company Noord-Nederlandse Beetwortelsuikerfabriek in 1896.
Foundation
The company
The company Noord-Nederlandse Beetwortelsuikerfabriek was founded as a public company with a share capital of 1,000,000 guilders divided in 1,000 shares of 1,000 guilders each. A hundred shares would not be issued initially. The founders took 320 shares, and the rest was offered to the public. This occurred in Amsterdam, The Hague, Groningen, Friesland, and in the small Brabant towns of Roosendaal and Bergen op Zoom. Bergen op Zoom housed one of Paul Wittouck's factories. Roosendaal had two sugar factories.
The director of the company would be A. Springer, or L. de Ram. The supervisory board consisted of a selection of the Friesland and Groningen elite led by the very wealthy Jan Evert Scholten. Other members of the supervisory board were R. Bloembergen Ezn., F.E. Botma, J.L. Hilarides, Mr. D. van Houten, Ern. Laane, Lanmbert de Ram, F. de Ram, G. Reinders, Mr. W.J. van Welderen Baron Rengers. J.K. Rienks, D.K. Welt, and G. Zylma. Laane was a banker in Roosendaal, and the De Rams were sugar manufacturers from the south. Later on, Bloembergen was said to have been instrumental in founding the company together with his friend Scholten. In September 1896, O. Borchert became director. The other leaders were Secretary R. Bloembergen Ezn., A. van Rossum, and President-Commissaris J.E. Scholten.
While this company was owned by the shareholders, it was planned to operate on a participation system. During the campaign, the farmers would get advance payments based on the sugar price. Of the final profit, 45% would then be divided over the supplying farmers. The participation system would become very popular; however, initially many farmers opted to simply sell their beet for a somewhat higher price instead of relying on total amount of sales to determine their payout.
Terrain
A terrain for the new sugar factory was found at Vierverlaten, a small hamlet just west of Hoogkerk, which was itself about 5 km west of Groningen. Vierverlaten was named for a lock in the Hoendiep, a canal which connected Vierverlaten to Groningen and Leeuwarden. The Aduarderdiep connected Vierverlaten to the north of Groningen and north-east Friesland. The Peizerdiep was also navigable but was primarily used as a supply of clean water from the sandy grounds of Drenthe. Vierverlaten was on the Harlingen–Nieuweschans railway, which served as an important hub for supply of coal.
The terrain was shaped like a triangle, with one long side bordering the Hoendiep (see Plate IX). Here boats could moor over a length of 500 m. All along the Hoendiep, channels were dug in which offloaded beets would be flushed towards the factory. There was also an automated beet pulp transporter that efficiently loaded beet pulp back into the boats. All along the quay, the Hoendiep was widened by six meters to support these processes.
The short side of the triangle was partly taken by a specially constructed port of . This allowed for more controlled loading and offloading near the main factory building. The other long side of the terrain bordered the railroad. A private branch allowed railroad goods to be delivered to where they were needed.
Factory
The factory was built by Braunschweigische Maschinenbauanstalt. It required 2,500 piles for a solid foundation. Work started in September 1896, and it continued during the night. On October 1st, 1897, the factory became operational. The total cost to establish the sugar factory with its terrains, railroads, and harbor came to 1,200,000 guilders.
The sugar factory had been sized to find an optimal balance between economies of scale and what could be produced and sold. This resulted in a projected processing capacity of 1,000t of beet per day. The main building was 130 m long, 22 m wide, and 23 m high, which allowed plenty of space between the machines.
As the sugar beets were flushed to the factory through channels, some attached soil was removed. The machine that washed the remaining dirt off the beets was on the western side of the factory. The dirty water leftover from the washing process was moved to settling basins, where the pollutants settled down.
The beets were then moved up to the highest point in the factory. They were weighed and thrown into three slicing machines. From the slicing machines, the slices, or cossettes, went to the diffusion battery of 28 boilers, each of which had 6,500 liters capacity. The dried-out cossettes were then removed from the boilers from the bottom. From there, they were transported to 14 pulp presses, which were one level above the washing station. The beet pulp was then transported to the boats by the 64 meter-long beet pulp transporter (see Plate X).
From the diffusion boilers, the juices were pumped to the station for dry separation. From there, the juice went to five big boilers for the first saturation, which used carbon dioxide. The juice was then moved to eight presses. These steps were then repeated in the second saturation. In a third saturation, sulfurous acid was used next to carbon dioxide. Plate X shows the slicing machines, scales, and diffusers on the right. On the left are the saturation pans and the filter presses placed higher up.
The factory had two quadruple-effect evaporators (see Plate XI). With 2,200 m2 of heated surface, these turned the thin juice into thick juice.
The third main part of the factory was called the sugar house (). The thick juice was pumped up through the filter tower until it reached the pans of the fourth saturation. Here it was treated with carbon dioxide and sulfurous acid. About 3 meters below these were the filters. Below these were three big vacuum boilers, according to the Greiner system. These steps resulted in sugar crystals.
One floor lower, there were six open . One floor further below, the sugar crystals entered the centrifuges. These were of the largest kind, with a diameter of 1,000 mm. The centrifuges were unloaded from below. An elevator then brought the sugar to the highest floors, which were used for storage. The syrup left in the centrifuges was processed in iron boxes, where it could crystallize further.
The factory was powered by thirteen Cornwall boilers, each with a heated surface of 100 m2 and a pressure of 7 atm. These provided the steam that put everything in motion. Two 45 m-high chimneys, with top openings of 2.5 m, were required for the exhaust. A large dynamo provided electricity during darkness, but a smaller one sufficed in daylight. Two ovens provided the lime needed for the process, as well as the carbon dioxide for the saturation.
History The company was originally founded as Noord-Nederlandsche Beetwortelsuikerfabriek. The first campaign started on 1 October 1897 and was finished before the end of November. It was a test campaign, which met with a lot of difficulties due to lack of experience. In anticipation of these initial difficulties, the factory had not contracted for many beets. During the first campaign, 30,000t of beet were processed. About two-thirds came from Friesland and one-third from Groningen. The beets were brought in small boats of 10–15 lasts (20–30t). Freight costs were 37,000 guilders. Labor cost for unloading, weighing, and general labor were 36,000 guilders.
The sugar market was and still is cyclical. This was reflected in the profits and dividends of the Noord-Nederlandsche. From 1897–98 to 1912–13, dividends were (in percentages): 2.5, 4.5, 5.5, 7, 4.5, 4.5, 3, 6, 10, 7, 6, 10, 10, 15, 15, and 10. The management of the company was rather stable. In June 1899, J.J. Reese replaced O. Borcherdt as director. In 1907, W.M. Gunning became director, and in September 1918 J.J. Granpré Molière was appointed.
During the first two decades of the 20th century, the factory complex expanded. In 1901, a large laboratory was built. In 1907, a barracks with 200 beds and facilities for temporary laborers was built. In 1912, another 380 m long harbor was dug along the railroad, but it did not give enough space for the barges to unload. A facility for drying beet pulp was constructed in 1913. In 1921, the boiler house was rebuilt.
By the early 1920s, the factory grounds allowed for storage of 20,000t of beet, 14,000t of coal, and 7,000t of lime. The unloading capacity at the factory was critical. At first, unloading was done by hand, but in time electrical and steam-powered cranes became operational. By the early 1920s, 2,700t of beet could be unloaded per day. In the 1921–22 campaign almost 140,000t of beet were processed.
The factory had a negative impact on the environment. In October 1906, pollution killed many of the fish in the Aduarderdiep. As the suffocating fish surfaced, most of it was caught by the local population. After repeated incidents, the municipality of Hoogkerk revised the permit for the factory. In the initial permit, it had stipulated that there would be four settling basins wherein waste would settle to the bottom. In May 1908, the municipality changed these conditions, as they were insufficient. W.M. Gunning, the recently appointed chief executive of the factory appealed this decision at the Council of State.
In 1911–1913, capacity reached 1,400t a day. In 1913, work started to increase the daily capacity of the factory to 2,500t of beet per day.
Part of Wester Suikerraffinaderij In early May 1918, it became known that the Amsterdam Sugar Refinery, Wester Suikerraffinaderij, had acquired a majority of the shares in the Noord-Nederlandsche Beetwortelsuikerfabriek. This meant that the company Noord-Nederlandsche Beetwortelsuikerfabriek became a daughter company of the Wester Suikerraffinaderij.
The shares had been bought at a price of 265% of the nominal value, i.e. 2,650 guilders per share. A competing offer of 290% by the Friesch Groningsche Coöperatieve Beetwortelsuikerfabriek had not been accepted. The Wester offered guarantees for the factory, employees, and management, but the Friesch Groningsche only offered guarantees for the employees and compensation for the management.