With just over a month since the start of the 2015 sugarcane crop, the Belize Sugar Industries has milled more than 30,000 tons of sugar, says factory manager, John Gillett.

Gillett told The Reporter this week that as of March 5, the factory had milled 32,000 tons of sugar. Gillet explained that the cane quality has been very high, allowing for a higher yield of sugar per ton of sugarcane.

He said the factory is also losing less time with its protocols making more time for milling.

"We have been running at a TC/TS ratio (Tons Cane/ Tons sugar of 8.60 percent," Gillett said, "We are also operating with half the lost time that we saw last year, falling from 8 percent to 4 percent."

BSI's communications assistant, Jeremy Gongora, reported that in week five of the crop the factory's overall time efficiency had gone up by 4.36 percent, rising from 90.42 last crop to 94.78 this crop.

Gongora added that the factory has milled 51,640 metric tons of cane during its first five weeks of milling.

The 2015 sugar cane crop got off to a late start due to several factors, the most pertinent of those being BSI not having a purchasing agreement with farmers for the sugar cane.

The crop officially got under way on January 26 2015.

The Reporter