Sugar Shortage - Who Eats All The Sugar In Thailand?

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Who Eats All the Sugar?

The sugar shortage and problems of overpricing have been periodically plaguing provincial areas. Many consumers have been complaining about how difficult it is to find sugar and how they are being taken advantage of by dealers, who have been jacking up prices.

However, the government is still turning a deaf ear to problems no matter how much the consumers are being ripped off. The government has allowed these problems prolong. Worse, the increase of sugar production by an additional one million sacks has not even been able to alleviate the shortage and overpricing.

Even now, some large retailers such as Tesco-Lotus have voiced their complaints about the shortage. As a result, the Industry Ministry has pledged to look into the matter.

While the cause of the shortage has not yet been pinpointed, another question has been raised; where are the additional one million sacks of sugar?

It is known that 500,000 sacks have already distributed to the market. The Industry Ministry and the Commerce Ministry have promised that the another 500,000 sacks will be available to the consumers within the next two weeks and has promised that the national demand for sugar will be sufficiently met.

However, if distribution still favors those in political interest groups, the shortage will remain despite any increase in production. Especially during the current period, when more sugar supplies are being exported due to high global prices. Also, the state has not been able to effectively control prices as no dealers are willing to sell the sugar at market prices. They have even been taunting the government to import more sugar.

The Commerce Ministry and the Industry Ministry should publicize what exactly has been going on, instead of blaming each other for the problem.

If the government is still being subservient to some interest groups, not only small-time consumers will be burdened, but the food and beverage industries will also be affected from the high sugar prices even though the country is a major sugar producer and exporter.

Taken from Analysis Section, Post Today Newspaper, Page 2, June 23, 2010.

Translate and Rewritten by Kongkrai Maksrivorawan

Please note that the views expressed in our "Analysis" segment are translated from local newspaper articles and do not reflect the views of the Thai-ASEAN News Network.

-- Tan Network 2010-06-24

[Phil Conners]

Where is that sugar is supposed to be in short supply. Both now and last there was as story about sugar shortage there has been plenty of sugar available in the Pattaya supermarkets...

[frankman]

All the sugar is in the toast bred in the country. 

[MCos]

Some times there is so much sugar in the food I wonder what is the main ingredient. Today I had a squid dish for lunch - or was it a sugar dish with squid chucked in for variety?

[TallForeigner]

Because sugar is much more expensive abroad, I am convinced that some of this sugar is smuggled to neighbouring countries for sale at higher prices. But this alone does not explain why white sugar has virtually disappeared from the market in the city. The Commerce Ministry is yet to provide a satisfactory explanation on who is making a sweet deal.

Come on, Khun Alongkorn Ponlabutr, you are an anti corruption fighter and you are Deputy Minister of Commerce - what say you?

Edited June 24, 2010 by TallForeigner

[sharking]

someone got sticky fingers then

[Colabamumbai]

Tend to agree a lot more must be being smuggled out of the country and pretending that there are shortages is just an excuse to raise prices, to create a false economy.

We should all be buying stocks in sugar in Thailand.

[Samuian]

in the noodle soup bowls...

nay' in India a rumor of any "shortage" always was an indicator that the commodity price was going up soon...!

[taurus88]

The sugar daddies are hoarding all the sugar. Flash them out and the problem is solved.

[BSJ]

Being a sugar trader in LOS has the sweet smell of success about it.....or should that be the "Sweet Taste of Success"?

[tigerbalm]

I think a lot of it is being diverted to the production of Bio fuel

[mahtin]

Who has sugar in their cruet?

This is one they can't blame on the farang.

[TallForeigner]

I think a lot of it is being diverted to the production of Bio fuel

Wow! <snip>! We are talking here about white sugar....do you know what that is?

Who would produce biofuels from refined white sugar? Even the heavily subsidized white sugar costs over 23 Baht/kg in Thailand. For the production of 1 litre of bioethanol you would need nearly 2kg of it...

Well over 45 Baht for raw material per litre of fuel plus nutrients plus production cost...doesn't need a PhD to figure out the rest.

There is no absolute shortage of white sugar, because Thailand is still the world's second largest exporter of white sugar.

If you are still not convinced here some more info: A part of bioethanol in Thailand is produced from molasses, the rest from cassava. Molasses is a by-product of sugar production. In fact the more sugar you refine into white sugar the more molasses you will produce. Since in Thailand no bioethanol is produced from sugar cane syrup directly, an increase in molasses production for the manufacturing of bioethanol would require an increase in sugar production...

Edited June 24, 2010 by toptuan
Rude and inflammatory comment deleted.

[halfhead]

"Even now, some large retailers such as Tesco-Lotus have voiced their complaints about the shortage. As a result, the Industry Ministry has pledged to look into the matter."

This lady(from Burma)buys trolley loads of sugar every day to bring over the border

Edited June 24, 2010 by halfhead

[Musongman]

Tell me that only "looks like" a woman with two trolleys of sugar?

Maybe there are a lot of large illegal stills these days?

[meelousee]

SHORT Answer PTT

[slapout]

We have seem the government set price and quantity but both are routinely ignored by the retailer and the purchaser in the same order. It is also becoming more evident in other commodities where price are supposed to be controlled.There seems to be a entity here that control the price/availability of various consumables , nation wide. The retail outlets are where the fingers seem to point with inspection/enforcement team visits. They probably need to be scrutinizing the corporate groups who are the middlemen in the system. It may be that more groups will follow some recent examples of those who refused to follow government dictate and got away with it. We hear people say that they are independent and do not like to be told what to do. That seems to apply generally until others act in that manner and it affects the observers.

[SunsetT]

Going off on a slight tangent with this subject, I wonder why the Thais seem to love to ruin so many food products with ridiculously high amounts of sugar, e.g. bread, pizza, 'natural' yoghurt, baked beans, and so many of their snacks etc? I can understand it's use in Thai cookery to counter balance the overuse of ingredients with such high salt content, e.g. soy, fish, oyster sauce etc., but I suspect there is a cultural/religious 'genetic' element too in the Thai psyche which was imported with the Indian religious beliefs of Hinduism and Buddhism (which of course, grew out of Hinduism). Hinduism classifies food and many other things in life as either sattvic, rajastic, or tamasic. which basically refer to whether what you eat accelerates your spiritual progress or slows it down. It teaches that eating sweet tasting food is sattvic, which means you are somehow imbibing good spiritual/moral qualities like vitimins or nutrients. Total bunkum I believe, as it has resulted in India having one of the highest rates of diabetes in the World!!!

Also my Thai lady, despite eating pork & chicken, seems to have an inbuilt revulsion to eating beef. A friend says his Thai wife is the same. This too could come from the Hindu reverence of the cow as sacred.

Please forgive my idle ramblings ................but interesting I think !

[cdnvic]

Its a global thing. Even many "good" foods in the west are full of either salt or sugar in unhealthy amounts. Most convenience foods are simply sugar and flour arranged in different ways.

[Ricardo]

Where is that sugar is supposed to be in short supply. Both now and last there was as story about sugar shortage there has been plenty of sugar available in the Pattaya supermarkets...

It has been rationed, only 3 kgs per customer, in my local supermarkets in Chiang Mai for some months now. And even then can still sometimes be out-of-stock.

Edited June 24, 2010 by Ricardo

[tominbkk]

Diabetes is an epidemic in Thailand now, thanks to the white poison.....

[Thunder26]

I haven't bought any sugar since I have been here in Thailand for five years. There is no need to buy it as Thai food has got plenty of sugar. Sometimes normal food becomes sweet as cake which is over the top. So much sugar in Thai food that I have never missed it.

[whimsy]

Soft drink makers are one of the major users. They cater to the Thai taste for intense flavours. Commercial iced teas contain large amounts. I believe that I read somewhere that Coke in Thailand contains almost twice the (already high) quantity of sugar that is used in Coke in many other countries.

[gemini81]

Diabetes is an epidemic in Thailand now, thanks to the white poison.....

they dump tons of it in their noodle soup and suki. i cant handle all that sugar. guess thats why you see many thais overweight in BKK too thanks to sugar. true, diabetes is on the rise. i know a couple of locals who have it and blame it on other things, but the fact is they consumed a ton of sugar.

[MESmith]

"Even now, some large retailers such as Tesco-Lotus have voiced their  complaints about the shortage. As a result, the Industry Ministry has  pledged to look into the matter."

This lady(from Burma)buys trolley loads of sugar every day to bring over the border

That photo reminds me of my neighbour back in Saudi, years ago, doing his shopping.  Nobody took any notice, even tho' it was obvious what he was up to.  Same when buying several cases of non alcoholic beer, bags of sugar & pack of yeast

[Scott]

I am not a big fan of sugar. I use it, but sparingly. I have trouble eating Thai desserts and some of the local drinks because they are just too sugary.

One of the first signs of movement from a developing to a developed country is in the waistline--there may be a few exceptions (Japan, perhaps?), but the first thing that happens is people get fat. Between the excessive use of cooking oil and sugar, I think Thailand is headed into a real weight problem.

Years ago, when I first came to Thailand, I had trouble finding pants because my waistline was 32-34. About a size 30 was as big as you could find. It was also hard to find a belt.

Not a problem anymore (oh and I've gone up a size or so as well).

[oldgeezer]

Or 24 bottles of grape juice.

[lannarebirth]

Good news. Let's hope an MSG shortage will develop as well.

[Reallush]

"Even now, some large retailers such as Tesco-Lotus have voiced their complaints about the shortage. As a result, the Industry Ministry has pledged to look into the matter."

This lady(from Burma)buys trolley loads of sugar every day to bring over the border

I've seen this so often at Udon Thani tesco lotus, they sell it in laos for 1 baht more per bag ^^ and later you'll have the 3 Kilo's per family limit again, heard that it's forbidden these days though to smuggle sugar over the border but im not sure about how true that is.

Or maybe, the "shortage" is just to try prevent the people from becoming obese.

[/url] ( very long video but it explains a lot.)

[Colabamumbai]

Soft drink makers are one of the major users. They cater to the Thai taste for intense flavours. Commercial iced teas contain large amounts. I believe that I read somewhere that Coke in Thailand contains almost twice the (already high) quantity of sugar that is used in Coke in many other countries.

17 teaspoons in a small bottle of coke.