In the blink of an eye, the retail price of refined sugar has skyrocketed from P55–P60 per kilo early this year to P100-P115 per kilo currently, depending on where you live in the country.
In eight months, the price of sugar, a commodity used daily by all Filipino households, has almost doubled in price. But if you belong to the one percent, you may not have noticed.
The country’s sugar output is estimated to have fallen at its lowest levels in more than two decades. Here are the three alleged culprits in this sugar shortage story.
Typhoon Odette on December 16, 2021 was the first culprit. After suffering P1.5 billion in losses, the sugarcane industry had to revise expected sugar outputs for the year due to destroyed crops and damaged milling and refining facilities.
To address the expected shortfall in supply, the Sugar Regulatory Administration (SRA) proposed a sugar importation program which sugar producers agreed to on the condition that importation be limited to the shortfall.
After the SRA authorized the importation of 200,000 metric tons of refined sugar for industrial users, half of which was to be used by beverage makers, however, the second culprit in this story, the sugar producers, sought the courts’ intervention to stop the importation.
After a legal tussle, the SRA finally implemented the importation program but it was too late. The country’s supply of sugar could no longer keep up with the rising demand. Hence, the stratospheric prices.
The shortfall in supply has been further exacerbated by the drop in sugarcane yield due to the ill effects of La Niña, the third culprit.
Soda companies have recently confirmed the shortage of Premium Refined Sugar, a key ingredient in many of their products. If you go to the supermarkets today, you may find your soda of choice in dwindling supply or at some places, totally gone from the shelves.
Do not despair. It’s not the end of the world. In fact, it could be the beginning of a better one for you if you indulge in soda daily. A 330 ml can of soda can contain about 35 grams or nine teaspoons of sugar. Way too much sugar in one drink with zero nutritive value. You can skip soda. Forever.
The recommended “safe” amount of sugar intake daily is nine teaspoons for men and six teaspoons for women but sugar is everywhere—not just in soda but in energy drinks and flavored beverages like teas, juices and coffee. It also lurks in sauces, salad dressings and condiments.
As the Filipino daily diet abounds with sugar, both natural and added, it’s probably best that we stick to water as a beverage and take our tea, plain, our coffee, black.
Due to stratospheric prices, in the blink of an eye, we might have to wean ourselves from our generational sugar addiction. And that might be the natural sweetener in this story.