Western Sugar Cooperative — A harvest for the ages

Western Sugar Cooperative — A harvest for the ages

By John Bernhisel

Too often the history we read about is from hundreds of years ago, but this week the Lovell Western Sugar factory made a little history of its own. In a presentation before the Lovell Area Chamber of Commerce Monday, factory manager Shannon Ellis shared the exciting news of yet another record harvest, one strengthened by new technology, improved agronomic science and the hard-working farmers, drivers and workers who keep everything running year after year.

The Lovell sugar factory has been part of the Basin’s heartbeat since 1916, when the Great Western Sugar Company built it to support a young but booming beet industry. Back then, early harvests averaged “about 10 tons per acre,” Ellis said, a humble beginning compared to today’s yields. By the 1950s and ’60s, improved farming practices started pushing averages close to 20 tons per acre, a milestone growers celebrated at the time as remarkable progress.

More than a century later, the factory, now part of the Western Sugar Cooperative, continues to modernize with new slicers, presses, updated electrical systems and long-awaited improvements to its century-old elevator. Its workforce expands from 40 year-round employees to more than 110 during harvest as the plant processes beets from across northern Wyoming and southern Montana.

All of that set the stage for a sugar beet harvest like no other in 2025.

After a season of near-perfect growing weather, growers watched field after field break records, averaging 32.11 tons per acre, with sugar content at 18.39 percent. The factory processed about 450,000 tons of Wyoming beets and another 100,000 tons from Montana, where growers also hit new highs.

And the outlook, Ellis suggested, is still rising. When asked about the mathematical limits of what growers can achieve, he noted that it is remarkable to be well beyond the 30-ton mark already, but he believes yields will continue to climb as knowledge, techniques and technology improve.

More than a century after the first beets were sliced in Lovell, 2025 will be remembered as the year the factory made history again, another chapter in a long story that began with 10-ton fields and now reaches into possibilities that growers a century ago could hardly imagine.