Feature: Cuba looks to diversify sugarcane products

Cuba is looking to make the most of its key cash crop by diversifying the range of products it derives from sugarcane, such as rum, candy and cattle feed.

Demand for sugarcane products is stronger than for plain sugar, notes state-owned sugar producer AZCUBA, and they would help Cuba better weather the fluctuating prices of sugar on the international market.

In the past five years, sugar production, once Cuba's leading industry, has bounced back a bit thanks to greater government investment. Decades of decline, due to low prices and aging infrastructure, practically drove the sector into the ground in the 1990s.

Today, about 130 factories turn sugar into different products, mainly animal feed, but AZCUBA is courting foreign investment to expand the range.

In the lead-up to the 14th International Congress on Sugar and Derivatives, to be hosted by Cuba in June, AZCUBA executives took part in a televised roundtable discussion about the future of the industry.

"The industry is being revived again," said the head of AZCUBA's Derivatives Group, Carlos Gonzalez, listing investment opportunities in distilleries, glucose and sorbitol plants, and the making of bagasse boards produced of fibrous sugarcane waste.

"Our distilleries, the glucose-sorbitol program, improving and developing the bagasse board plants are open to foreign investment," said Gonzalez.

AZCUBA makes and sells Cuban rums, including the brands Mulata, Santero and Vigia, which are exported to some 50 countries in Asia, Europe and Latin America.

Hector Companioni, director general of TECNOAZUCAR, AZCUBA's brand-development arm, underscored the export quality of Cuba's rums.

"Our five exporting rum distilleries are certified for international trade," he said, adding more brands are on the way, such as Conde de Cuba, Vacilon and Santisima Trinidad.

To that end, four new rum distilleries form part of the national investment portfolio.

AZCUBA is also strengthening its candy manufacturing sector, which already features a range of 35 products.

"We are launching a new candy project: the fudge candy that is in high demand in the Cuban market and is currently imported, and we can take on," said Companioni.

The revival of Cuba's sugarcane-based industrial output has the scientific backing of the Cuban Institute for Research on Sugarcane Derivatives (ICIDCA), located in west Havana's so-called scientific hub.

Sugarcane provides eight essential products, such as molasses, that in turn serve as the raw materials for other more complex production processes, according to ICIDCA's general director, Arodys Caballero.

That makes "the topic of derivatives production ... infinite," said Caballero, recalling that as recently as the 1980s, Cuba's sugar industry was one of the world's most diversified.

Today, the ICIDCA -- which has cooperation agreements with universities in China, Brazil and Mexico, all major sugar producers -- has 33 different research projects underway, and another five in conjunction with international organizations, some in the area of biotechnology.

"Right now we have three enzymes under development that can be highly beneficial (to Cuba), not just for import substitution, but also for their greater value-added export potential," said Caballero.

Diversifying the island's sugar industry could make a decisive contribution to Cuba's economy.

"We still have a lot to do," said Gonzalez, such as expanding capabilities, and incorporating new production lines and new technologies, but the industry's potential is clear.

"We want to expand the range of products in order to seek new markets. We are certain that one day sugar derivatives will be as important to the national economy as sugar is today." Endit