The last factory in California that turns sugar beets into sugar is shutting down after 78 years, according to the company that owns the factory. The closure means the elimination of hundreds of local jobs and possibly the end of sugar beet farming in the state.

The Southern Minnesota Beet Sugar Cooperative last month started the process of decommissioning its processing plant in Brawley in the Imperial Valley, which it operates under its subsidiary Spreckles Sugar Co. The cooperative will instead "focus its resources" on a more profitable plant in Renville, Minnesota, the company said in a release earlier this year.

Sugar beets — root vegetables that contain high levels of sucrose — are used to produce more than half the sugar in the U.S., alongside sugar cane. The beets grow in the Imperial Valley in Southern California with the help of its nutrient-rich soil and water from the Colorado River.

The Brawley factory will remain open until late this year or early 2026 while production is phased out. Once its doors close, sugar beet farming will grind to a halt in California, because strict federal regulations block the Imperial Valley from processing beets in other facilities, KPBS reported.

It is a huge loss for the region, where unemployment rates are high and agriculture is the second-largest job creator. Imperial County officials said the factory closure will eliminate 700 jobs and a $243-million industry, according to KPBS.

Since 2000, 28 sugar beet and sugar cane factories have closed, leaving just 43, the cooperative said. The U.S. sugar industry has faced an uncertain macroeconomic environment in recent years, as well as declines in sugar prices and post-pandemic inflation, the company said.

"This was a difficult decision brought about by factors largely out of our control," said Paul Fry, chief executive of the cooperative. "Despite our extensive investments in the facility, the economic challenges facing the sugar industry have been building for several years as the costs of operating the Spreckels facility have continued to escalate."

Spreckels was incorporated in San Francisco in 1896. The cooperative acquired the Brawley factory in 2005.

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