The sugar cane industry

The one and only sugar cane man

I've been very busy at work this week so have nothing new of interest to report.

One thing people are fascinated by and that I frequently get asked about by people who read my blog is 'sugar cane man', seen in the picture to the left doing his rounds. This chap goes around the city selling raw sugar cane from the back of his bicycle. It looks like tough work but I used to see him lots which means there must be a big demand for the stuff. This has led many people to ask me questions. Who buys the sugar cane? where does he get it? what happens to the sugar cane?

typical sugar cane retailer

Due to these questions, over the past several months I've been researching the sugar cane industry to get some answers.

Well, it turns out that sugar cane man sells his raw sugar cane to the numerous sugar cane stalls across the city. The picture to the right is of a typical sugar cane retail outlet. Notice the sugar cane retailer happily posing in the right of the photo.

What happens is they buy the sugar cane and put it through the machine which crushes it down to a white liquid called sugar cane juice.

Sugar cane consumer

You can see the rotating arm on the left side of the sugar cane machine above.

The sugar cane juice is then stored, mixed with ice, orange juice and sugar to make a refreshing drink. It retails for about 25,000 VND ($1.25) for a cup.

This is then sold to the sugar cane consumers as demonstrated by me with some sugar cane juice I had on monkey Island recently.

The locals here love this stuff. It is quite nice but pretty sweet.

typical sugar cane farmer

The only question I can not answer is where sugar cane man gets his sugar cane from. I know that sugar cane is grown by the sugar cane farmer as shown in the picture to the right. but I'm unsure as to whether sugar cane is purchased directly from the farmer or some type of intermediary such as a wholesaler. I'm not sure how to find this out.

I could ask sugar cane man but he doesn't speak any English and was not happy with me posing in a photo with him when I saw him last.

So just to summarise. We can see below the sugar can supply chain which gives us a good idea as to how the industry works.

The sugar cane supply chain

As you can see the only missing gap is the uncertainty of the step between the sugar cane farmer and sugar cane man. I'll ask some questions and see what I can find out. As always, I'll let you know when I know.