Sugar Daddy

Born This Day Series, Social Media Content

Born this day 1753, Franz Karl Achard. (Who?) Franz is the guy who figured out how to make sugar from beets, trumped the Brits and revolutionized the sugar industry. 

In 1575, the French soil scientist Olivier de Serres devised the process of making a sweet syrup from beets. But sugar was already available and no one was interested in syrup. Perfecting a method of crystallizing that syrup took another 215 years—in 1790, Achard cracked it. Once he started planting, Napoleon sent spies to gather information, then ordered mass plantings throughout France. 

This was necessary because the British were in control of the world’s sugar supply. And when they heard about Achard’s work, they were not pleased. The deeply shady London Society of West India Planters & Merchants sent a deputation of smiling gentlemen, who offered him a lot of money to declare his discovery a failure. But Prussia’s King Frederik saw Napoleon’s embargoes coming and anted up, investing heavily in the new resource. In 1801, Franz Achard opened the world’s first sugar factory, at Cunern (Konary). 

Not only did Achard start to build sugar factories, he figured out how tobacco could be grown in Germany. Tobacco was also controlled by the British plantocracy. Now, with sugar and tobacco no longer luxury items, the London Society was seriously annoyed.

Which might explain how Franz failed. He built refinery and after refinery, each one doomed. As his process was shared, and factories abounded in Europe, all of his factories somehow caught fire. He died in 1821, destitute, perhaps thinking of the smiling gentlemen.