Halfweg sugar factory

The Halfweg sugar factory is a now defunct beet sugar factory previously known as "Suikerfabriek Holland". It closed down in 1992 and was then repurposed to become 'Sugar City', an area with offices, retail shops and an event venue. The terrain measures 11 hectares, and is hemmed in by the Haarlemmerstraatweg, the Ringvaart of the Haarlemmermeer polder, and the wide part of the Ringvaart that leads to the sluices and the former Zijkanaal F. Halfweg village is on the other side of the wide part of the Ringvaart.

Gemeenlandshuis Zwanenburg

The first development in the area took place in 1517, when a brick house was mentioned. In 1632 the canal Haarlemmertrekvaart was completed between Amsterdam and Haarlem. In the polders Houtrijk and Polanen, the canal was not continuous and passengers had to change boats. Here the settlement Halfweg, literally 'half way' formed.
In 1645–1648, the Gemeenlandshuis Zwanenburg, designed by Pieter Post was built. The location was chosen, because it was just west of a couple of sluices. These discharged from the Haarlemmermeer directly onto the IJ and prevented the brackish IJ water from entering the lake. The IJ reached up to this point till the construction of the North Sea Canal from 1865 to 1876.
In 1852, the Haarlemmermeer polder was made dry. The Hoogheemraadschap van Rijnland therefore decided to build a new steam pumping station for the sluices. This also meant that there was no more use for the already monumental Zwanenburg building, and plans were made to demolish it in 1859.

Sugar factory Zwanenburg (1862–1881)

In April 1862 many were relieved to hear of the plans to create a sugar factory in the Gemeenlandshuis Zwanenburg. It happened to more or less meet the criteria for a sugar factory building: Sturdy enough and high enough to contain the required machinery and located on a navigable water. However, by itself the location at Zwanenburg also made sense. It was on the crossroads of many inland waterways, and these were extremely important to economically transport the relatively heavy sugar beet. It was also on the Amsterdam–Haarlem railway and on the Haarlemmerstraatweg, one of the first Dutch paved roads.
File:Exterieur OVERZICHT, MET GEBOUWEN SUIKERFABRIEK - Halfweg - 20315950 - RCE.jpg|thumb|left|In 1986: Gemeenlandshuis Zwanenburg along the N200
On 30 January 1863 Bartholomeus Lans, living at Zwanenburg, formed the partnership Barth. Lans & Co. with himself as only managing partner. The capital of the partnership would be 400,000 guilders. Its goal was the foundation of a sugar factory and sugar distillery and other activities at Zwanenburg. The other partners were Abraham Dudok van Heel and Paul Cornelis van Vlissingen, but this was not advertised. These men were involved with Van Vlissingen en Dudok van Heel and wanted to have a nearby factory where they could test and experiment with machinery they were licensed to produce. In June 1863 Mr. de Zwaan Jr. and Mr. de Koper from Amsterdam got the order to change Zwanenburg to a sugar factory.
In January 1865 the public company "N.V. Beetwortelsuikerfabriek op den huize Zwanenburg" was founded to replace the Lans & Co, partnership. The new Naamloze vennootschap was funded by the previous partners transferring their assents. Now the role of Van Vlissingen en Dudok van Heel and its owners, manufacturers of sugar factory equipment, became public. Of the 350 1,000 guilder shares taken, 265 could be directly related to them, or their partners related to Société J. F. Cail & Cie.
The factory operated for quite some time, but was not making much money. One of the causes was that in the early years, the beet grown in the Haarlemmermeer polder contained much salt and were low in sugar. The factory therefore had to contract for sugar beet in Gelderland and North Brabant. In 1872 the shares were deprecated from 1,000 to 500 guilders. It was not enough, in 1876, the Zwanenburg shares again decreased sharply to about 10% of their new nominal value.
In January 1881 a group of large creditors took action to protects its interests. It led to an extraordinary shareholders meeting on 14 March, which agreed with the creditors, and then proposed to liquidate the company. For which a new meeting was called on 19 March 1881. The factory and other assets at Halfweg were then auctioned for 84,600 guilders in October 1881. Soon after, the company declared bankruptcy.

Suikerfabriek Holland N.V. (1881–1920)

Foundation

Mr. Adrianus van Rossum from Amsterdam had bought the sugar factory in October 1881 for 81,600 guilders. The factory would not work that season. Adrianus van Rossum came from a family that was already active in the sugar trade and beet sugar manufacture. He first went to live in Halfweg, and then founded a public company "N.V. Suikerfabriek Holland" in Houtrijk and Polanen. Shareholders were:

Adrianus van Rossum for 85 shares
Willem Marinus van der Tak for 20 shares
Frederik Johan Spakler for 20 shares
Willem van Bevervoorde for 15 shares

Van Rossum became the first director. The three other shareholders became members of the supervisory board. W. van Bevervoorde is probably the director of the Beetsuikerfabriek Geldermalsen. Spakler can be related to the sugar refinery Spakler & Tetterode in Amsterdam.
In 1882 the factory had 5 boilers with a total heated surface of 350 m³. There were 7 steam engines. The surface of the filters was 70 m². The evaporators had a heated surface of 360 m². The daily beet processing capacity was 120 tonnes. Raw sugar production was 9.7 t per day. The factory used 18 t of coal per day.

Production and expansion

Suikerfabriek Holland would succeed where Zwanenburg failed. Some facts about early investments and innovation at sugar factory Holland are known. During 1886 major changes were made to the factory. In 1887 the construction of two separate buildings for heating and osmosis was mentioned. The objective was to move the diffusion process out of the factory proper. By 1888, so many improvements had been made that the factory produced 19 tonnes of raw sugar per day.
A major expansion was the construction of a crystallization building in 1893. In early 1897 work started to double the production capacity of the factory. This included a warehouse, a hall for 4 boilers, a new diffuser, and a new 45 m high chimney. It was however expected that it would take a few years to contract enough beet to use the higher capacity. The 1898/99 campaign showed the effect of the higher capacity: In a 52-day campaign more beet were processed than in the 108 day campaign of 1896/97. While this short campaign did not fully utilize the higher capacity, it still had the advantage of extracting more sugar by limiting the storage time of the beet.

Campaign	Start / end	Sugar beet*	Notes
1886/87	27 Sep - 20 Dec	14,000 t
1887/88	19 Sep - 17 Dec	15,500 t
1888/89	24 Sep - 22 Dec	14,000 t	-
1889/90	20 Sep - 11 Jan	30,200 t
1890/91	23 Sep - 22 Jan	38,000 t	Delayed by frost
1891/92	7 Oct - 16 Dec	23,000 t	Paid low prices
1892/93	26 Sep - 13 Jan	36,000 t	Wet farmland delayed transport
1893/94	28 Sep - 25 Dec	30,000 t
1894/95	4 Oct - 25 Dec	36,000 t	Beet f 10.00 sugar f 15.00
1895/96	27 Sep - 24 Dec	37,500 t	Beet f 8.50 sugar f 11.50
1896/97	28 Sep - 13 Jan	54,000 t	Beet f 9.00 sugar f 13.00
1897/98	5 Oct - 8 Dec	47,000 t
1898/99	6 Oct - 26 Nov	56,000 t	Short due to higher capacity
1899/00	4 Oct - 15 Dec	67,000 t

During the 1880s and 1890s, there were numerous reports that shed some light on the operations of the factory and on the challenges it faces. During 1886 campaign many beet were grown in the IJ-polders and Haarlemmermeer polder. During the 1886/87 campaign, a drought led to some problems at the factory, because the Amsterdamsche Duinwater-Maatschappij could not deliver enough fresh water, while a new Norton Pump installed at the factory did not yield good enough ground water. The 1890/91 campaign was again busy. In November 1890, about 40-50 barges were loading, unloading or waiting at the factory at the same time. The 1891/92 campaign was very short. It ended on 16 December, after processing only 23,000 tonnes due to the factory contracting at low prices. The 1892/93 campaign was severely delayed by the fields being very wet. The beet could be harvested, but could not be transported from the field to a barge. The 1932 movie illustrates this problem. In 1900, 1,497 vessels were used to transport beet to the factory.

Concentration and innovation (1900–1920)

As the production data shows, the ever increasing capacity of the factory led to ever shorter campaigns. Of course, the idea was to contract for more sugar beet to utilize the extra capacity in a longer campaign. The data shows that these plans did not come to fruition. The problem was that Sugar factory Holland was not the only factory that increased capacity. The result was that sugar factories began to compete for sugar beet.
The sugar factories then limited their competition by forming a cartel, the Bond van Suikerfabrikanten. In the cartel they made agreements about the sugar beet price. In 1883 e.g. they determined to pay only 10 guilders a tonne for sugar beet in 1884. Later, prices differed by region, but were still steered by the factories. One of the most contentious aspects was whether the sugar content should influence the price. In 1898 the cartel decided on a production quotum for beet. A factory could produce more, but would then have to pay the part of the government subsidy that could be related to his overproduction to the other sugar factories. The cartel caused that the overcapacity in the sector was not corrected.
The situation in the 1880s and 1890s also meant that there was a business opportunity for a competitor outside of the cartel. In 1899 the power of the private sugar factories was broken by the foundation of the cooperative Eerste Nederlandsche Coöperatieve Beetwortelsuikerfabriek in Sas van Gent. It would be followed by the Dinteloord sugar factory in 1908 and a few others in 1913 and 1914. Apart from introducing competition on the sugar beet market, this also brought new competitors to the already saturated raw sugar market.
Meanwhile, technical innovations continued. In 1903 the Wittouck factory in Breda was the first Dutch sugar factory to produce white sugar directly from sugar beet. The same factory installed a Steffen installation in 1908. These technical innovations caused a need for investment capital. In 1905 Holland increased its processing capacity to 1,400 tonnes of beet per day.
On account of the 25th anniversary of the factory in 1907, and overview of the facility was published, and compared with the situation in 1882. In 1907 the factory had 14 boilers with a total heated surface of 1,237 m³. There were 36 steam engines. The surface of the filters was 780 m². The evaporators had a heated surface of 2,360 m². The daily beet processing capacity was 1,360 tonnes. Raw sugar production was often 200 t per day. The factory used 90-100 tonnes of coal per day.
These developments finally led to a restructuring of the private beet sugar factories. Some were closed down, while others merged. In 1908 the Suikerfabrieken van Breda en Bergen op Zoom merged with Sugar factory de Mark in Oudenbosch to form the Algemeene Suiker Maatschappij.
World War I was problematic for the sugar industry. The production of Sugar factory Holland was limited by coal shortages. This also applied to the sugar refineries that refined the factory's product. As a result, part of the sugar beet harvests ended up as cattle fodder. This was the final blow for some private sugar factories.
In January 1917 A. van Rossum died after a long illness. On 1 April M.C. de Jong from Haarlem and A.J. van Rossum from Aerdenhout became the new directors.