Sugar supplies decreasing

So what about the so-called sugar shortage candy manufacturers have predicted?

"We're loving it; we're seeing the best prices on our sugar that we've had in years," said Charley Richard, a sugar-industry consultant and publisher of The Sugar Journal.

Granulated sugar in Utah grocery stores is about 50 cents to 70 cents per pound.

The United States doesn't supply enough sugar to meet our country's demand; under the Farm Bill quota system, roughly about 15 percent of it is imported.

To keep the market from being flooded with cheaper imported sugar, the United States sets a limit, and a tariff, on imported sugar.

"So it allows us to have a price that we can afford to stay in business," said Richard.

An exception is Mexico; under the North American Free Trade Agreement, Mexico can sell an unlimited amount.

In August, big food companies such as Kraft, General Mills, and Hershey warned of a crisis in a letter to Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack. The companies asked him to ease restrictions on importing foreign sugar, or they would have to raise prices on candy, cereals and so on.

But world prices are rising, too. India's crop was damaged by monsoons. The world's largest sugar producer, Brazil, is now using half of its crop to make ethanol fuel, said Richard.

In September, the global price of raw sugar reached 24.85 cents per pound, the highest point since 1981. It's now around 23 cents per pound.

"It's not that we're running short of sugar and need to start rationing," Richard said. "But the world's stockpile is decreasing."

— Valerie Phillips