Sugar refinery of Tienen

Coat of arms of the Wittouck family

The sugar beet industry in Europe and Belgium has its roots in the Continental System of Napoleon I in his struggle against the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland during the Napoleonic Wars. Sugar from sugar beets was increasingly used as an alternative for sugarcane, when in 1807 the British began a blockade of France, which prevented the import of sugarcane from the Caribbean.

From 1815 to 1830, Belgium was part of the United Kingdom of the Netherlands. The kingdom preferred raw cane sugar from its colony Java over raw sugar made from sugar beet. This policy was actually very profitable for the Southern Netherlands. The superior harbor of Antwerp made that shipping lines preferred to ship the Java raw sugar over there, instead of to the harbors of the former Dutch Republic.

After the 1830 Belgian Revolution, the Belgians regained Antwerp in December 1832 after a long siege. In spite of now possessing one of the best harbors of Europe, the Belgians did not gain access to a source of cheap raw cane sugar. In general, the powers which had colonies that produced raw cane sugar took all kinds of customs and fiscal measures that directed raw sugar shipments to their home ports. In turn they protected their domestic refineries by a high tariff on imported refined sugar.

In 1838 a small sugar factory was founded in Tirlemont by Mr. Van den Berghe de Binckum. His company also cultvated the required sugar beet.[2] In April 1838 the factory concluded trials between different methods of slicing sugar beet.[3] In the early years production was about 10 sacks of raw sugar per day.

In 1844 the Van den Berghe factory had 4 atm high pressure steam engine(s) of 10 hp.[4] On 3 November 1847 four employees of the sugar factory of Mr. Vandenberghe de Binckum got a gold medal for their courage during a fire that hit the Vandenberghe factory.[5]

In the late 1830s another small sugar factory had been founded by P.A. van den Bossche and J.J. Janssens.[6] In 1844, the sugar factory of the Brothers Janssens and Mr. Vandenbosche had 4 atm high pressure steam engine(s) of 10 hp.[4]

In 1849 the two sugar factories were merged.[6]

In 1865 Antoine-Henri Vinckenbosch established the partnership Vinckenbosch & Cie.[6][7]

From 1838 till 1875 the focus of the company was on agriculture. On 1,200 hectares, a dozen farms produced enough beet to feed a factory that could produce 30 tonnes of sugar per day. A serious problem for the factories was that by nature sugar beet exhausts the soil. A regular cultivation of sugar beet only became possible after the invention of chemical fertilizers. By 1875, production capacity rose to 150 tonnes per day.[8]

In 1874 Victor Beauduin became director of the company. He would leave the cultivation of sugar beet to independant farmers and concentrate on the development of the industrial components of the company.[9]

In 1876 the partnership Vinckenbosch & Cie was renewed. Edmond Vinckenbosch, Louis Vinckenbosch, and Victor Bauduin could sign for the partnership. The heirs of J.H. Vinckenbosch had 152 shares; Louis Vinckenbosch had 38 shares for himself; Louis Halflants 57; Pierre Pierco 38; Bonaventure Raeymaekers 38; Jean Pierco widow of Eugénie Raeymaekers and their heirs, amongst them Marie, wife of Victor Beauduin 38; Corneille Denis-Janssen and heirs 19; Victor Bauduin 24 shares for himself.[7]

In 1887 Edmond Vinckenbosch founded the public company NV Tiense Suiker-raffinaderijen.[6] In January 1888 Finance minister Auguste Beernaert and officials from his ministry visited the company. They took great interest in the extraction of sugar from molasses by separation and refining. The measuring devices and the contract to determine the amount of taxation were probably of even more interest.[10]

Paul Wittouck and his brother, Frans owned a sugar factory in Wanze. In 1894 they took over Vinckenbosch & Cie, owner of the sugar refinery of Tienen, and turned it into a limited company.[11] The brothers faced fierce competition from other sugar manufacturers in Belgium, but emerged as the dominant firm.[11] Through a series of technical innovations and improvement the volume of sugar produced in Tienen rose from 7,000 tonnes in 1894 to 62,000 tonnes in 1913. The company began to export sugar and to take over other Belgian companies.[11]

In 1931, the Chadbourne plan[12][13] was the first international agreement on sugar production, but due to international overproduction the situation of the sugar industry remained difficult until the end of World War II.

In 1949, F. Baerts, J. Dedek and G. Tibo of the Sugar refinery of Tienen invited several scientists form the European sugar industry to Brussels on 18 September 1949. This would lead to the foundation of the Commission Internationale Technique de Sucrerie (CITS).[14]

In 1950, the production of white sugar started with 399,000 tonnes produced that year. After the establishment of the European Union in 1958, the common agricultural policy led to the regulation of the European sugar market in 1968. In 1987 25 percent of the shares of the company were registered on the Brussels Stock Exchange and in 1989 Südzucker bought all shares of the company. In 1999 the company decided to install a seed magma preparation installation in the Tienen plant to reduce production costs and to improve the quality of the sugar.[15]