Sugar refinery of Tienen

The Sugar refinery of Tienen (Dutch: Tiense Suikerraffinaderij - French: Raffinerie Tirlemontoise), a subsidiary of Raffinerie Tirlemontoise Group (RT Group), is a Belgian sugar producing company. The company whose headquarters is located in Tienen (Belgium) has four business units: sugar activities, Orafti, Surafti and PPE, which together employ more than 1,800 people.

The company operates two sugar refineries in Belgium: Tienen (12,500 tons of beets per day) and Wanze with refinerie in Longchamps (16,500 tons of beets per day).

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.

The Sugar refinery of Tienen itself was founded in 1836 and in the early years production was about 10 sacks of raw sugar per day. By 1880, sugar beet cultivation rose to 1,000 tonnes. In 1894 Paul Wittouck and his brother Frans Wittouck took over Vinckenbosch & Cie, owner of the sugar refinery of Tienen, and turned it into a limited company. The brothers faced fierce competition from other sugar manufacturers in Belgium, but emerged as the dominant firm. 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.

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