American Crystal Sugar Company (ACSC)

American Crystal Sugar Company
Hillsboro Processing Plant
Hillsboro, ND
GPS: 47.434612, -97.062921

American Crystal Sugar Company (ACSC) is the sugar producer in the Red River Valley along the ND/MN border and also operates a facility in Sydney, MT serving the beet growers in the Yellowstone River Valley. ACSC is a grower cooperative.

American Crystal Sugar Company Production Facilities

In a typical harvest, ACSC will acquire 11 million tons of sugar beets. These beets will arrive at the processing plants in 550,000 truckloads, each truckload representing the harvest from one acre of farmland. The beets come from the 2,800 growers who are members of the cooperative.

The Hillsboro Factory

Our work site was the Hillsboro Factory, one of ACSC’s seven sugar beet factories. This factory was built in 1973 with major upgrades in 1997 and 1998. The Hillsboro Factory operates six piling locations: Hillsboro, Midway, Ada (north), Ada (west), Waukon, and Reynolds. We worked at the Hillsboro piling location where there are six pilers.

Here are some of the gee-whiz numbers:

Capacity: 2,500,000 tons

Average daily production: 1,425 tons

Employment: 225 year-round employees

Agricultural Information:

Number of member growers: 492

Number of acres planted: 70,757

Tons of beets processed: 1,402,421

Packaging / Warehousing

Number of different labels and products packaged: 24 labels, 4 pound packages

Hundredweight (100 pounds) packaged: 1.5 Million

Hundredweight (100 pounds) bulk shipments: 7 Million

By-products sold annually

Bulk Pulp pellets: 96,000 tons (cattle feed in USA, Europe, and Japan)

Molasses: 100,000 tons (cattle feed & fermentation)

Now you can wow your friends at cocktail parties with useless trivia until their eyes glaze over or until they go back to talking about their neighbors.

Posts about the Sugar Beet Harvest

FIRST DAY IN NORTH DAKOTA
Hillsboro, North Dakota, we have arrived

GETTING READY FOR WORK
Some paperwork to get us started

ON THE JOB TRAINING
A trip to the Hillsboro factory for some OJT

TEN DAYS OF WORK
Notes and pictures on our ten days of work

THE CAMPAIGN
A quick summary of the annual campaign of sugar beet processing

THE SUGAR BEET
Bigger than a coconut, smaller than a football. Here is the story on the sugar beet

THE PILER
I was very impressed with the big machine we worked on. I thought you might like to learn more.

THE SUGAR BEET PILE
How big is a pile that contains 90,000 tons? Here are some pictures and figures

DOWN AND DIRTY: GIVING BACK THE TARE DIRT
Harvesting root crops produces dirt. How to handle and dispose of it is an interesting side story

A LOOK AT THE SUGAR INDUSTRY
A $20 billion industry with 142,000 jobs in 22 states. Take a look at the Sugar Beet Industry

AMERICAN CRYSTAL SUGAR COMPANY
Get a closer look at the company providing this workamping opportunity.

EXPRESS EMPLOYMENT PROFESSIONALS
If you are a workamper interested in short term hard work for big bucks, here’s the link