Reunion island footprint in the cane sugar industry

Reunion Island is known for its melting pot, but did you know that because of its geographical position, its sugar industry has been able to benefit from major technical innovations and to pass them on to others? Reunion's sugar factories have been a crossroads for French, Mauritian, Australian and South African technologists to find innovations. Here are some of them:

• The first continuous pan in sugar cane mills: Designed by Fives, this technolgy is common today in the vast majority of sugar factories. France is doubly a pioneer in this technology as the first continuous pan was developed... in a refinery (Nantes - source Vo Ngoc Truoc)... At very high purity, the technical challenge was immense, but with this development in sugar cane factories, nothing will stop the expansion of continuous pans in cane.
• The first continuous pan without compartment; Developed by François Langreney, industrial director of Sucreries de Bourbon at the end of the 1980s at the Grands-Bois mill. It is without doubt the only truly plug flow concept of continuous pan. The manual adjustments of the syrup distribution occupied me a good first week of the sugar campaign at the beginning of the 90s. Its international development will take place in the USA, Mexico and Mauritius.
• Three continuous crystallization jets: It is also the first time in the world that three crystallization jets will be made by continuous pans on the Bois-Rouge factory.
• The first continuous centrifuges in a sugar cane factory: (Maxime Rivière, in collaboration with the machine manufacturer Fives, early 1970s), at the Quartier-Français mill.
  
• Cogeneration: a world first, in 1991, cogeneration on bagasse with a high-pressure boiler was to shake up the sugar industry and the energy source for the island. Today, the two units are entirely biomass-based, thus continuing to place Réunion among the French departments most concerned with sustainable development.
  
• Agronomy: Reunion's sugarcane varieties are exported all over the world - the know-how of the ErCane research centre is a world reference.
  
• Quality System: In 2008, the Gol sugar factory was the first sugar cane factory in the world to be certified ISO 22000.
  

• Cane Sugar Handbook: Emile Hugot's book is the biggest bestseller in technical bookshops on sugar cane processing.