IN Brief:
- Nordzucker plans to stop sugar production at Nakskov after the 2026/27 campaign, potentially affecting up to 150 jobs.
- Danish sugar production will be concentrated at Nykøbing, while Nakskov remains in operation as a packaging service centre.
- The restructuring follows other European capacity reductions as high stocks, overcapacity, and plant investment requirements pressure sugar-processing economics.
Nordzucker plans to stop sugar production at its Nakskov factory in Denmark after the 2026/27 campaign, while retaining the site as a packaging service centre. Subject to negotiations, production would end when the campaign is completed in January 2027, affecting up to 150 jobs.
Danish sugar production would be concentrated at Nykøbing, which Nordzucker says would then operate at full utilisation. Keeping packaging at Nakskov preserves part of the site’s role in the company’s Danish network, but beet processing, extraction, evaporation, crystallisation, drying, and the other core factory operations would move out of the location.
The decision follows a wider review of Nordzucker’s European manufacturing footprint. Earlier in 2026, the group said sugar production would stop at Trenčianská Teplá in Slovakia, while raw sugar refining and several specialist production lines would close at Porkkala in Finland. Commercial, logistics, or other functions remain at those sites, creating a pattern in which manufacturing is being concentrated while selected downstream activities continue.
Nakskov was identified as requiring a higher level of investment than other plants to maintain long-term efficiency and profitability. Sugar factories run highly seasonal campaigns but maintain large fixed assets throughout the year. Beet reception, washing, slicing, extraction, purification, evaporation, crystallisation, drying, storage, utilities, and maintenance all have to be available for a relatively short production window.
Higher utilisation at fewer factories can reduce duplicated fixed costs, although it also increases dependence on the remaining sites. More beet and finished sugar have to move through a smaller number of production locations, raising the importance of agricultural logistics, maintenance discipline, storage capacity, and contingency planning if a plant suffers an outage during campaign.
The market backdrop explains part of the pressure. Nordzucker’s August European sugar update put preliminary production at around 17.6 million tonnes and projected stocks above three million tonnes by September 2026 after two consecutive strong crops. Beet acreage for the current season is estimated to have fallen by 8% to 9% from the previous year, reaching its lowest level since the EU quota regime ended in 2017/18.
Those figures leave processors dealing with high stocks even as growers reduce planted area. Sugar factories cannot respond quickly to weak pricing in the same way as a lighter manufacturing operation because much of the cost base is tied to physical assets, energy systems, seasonal labour, maintenance, and agricultural supply relationships. A plant that also needs major reinvestment becomes harder to justify when the network already has surplus capacity.
Nordzucker is continuing to spend on factories it intends to retain. Modernisation work this summer has included new evaporator stages, upgrades to sugar houses and beet-washing systems, and a new extraction tower at Schladen in Germany. The projects are intended to reduce energy and carbon costs while improving process efficiency, indicating that capital is being redirected rather than simply withheld.
The contrast with Nakskov is one of allocation. A new evaporator stage or extraction tower can improve the energy balance and throughput of a plant expected to remain central to the network; the same expenditure is harder to defend at a site whose output can be absorbed elsewhere. Nykøbing’s planned full utilisation gives Nordzucker a clearer case for concentrating Danish production there.
Nordzucker says it intends to continue serving customers at current levels, with Nykøbing becoming the manufacturing base and Nakskov retaining packaging activity. Concentrating supply at Nykøbing will reduce the number of production assets supporting Danish output and place a greater share of throughput through the remaining factory.
Packaging activity gives Nakskov a continuing operational role after beet processing stops. Warehousing and packing can remain commercially useful even when the upstream process no longer clears the investment threshold, particularly where customer service and distribution routes have already been built around the location.
Nordzucker launched an additional action programme in 2025 alongside its Fields for Growth strategy to improve cost efficiency and optimise its network structure. Nakskov is now one of the clearest factory-level outcomes of that programme: production is being concentrated at a site expected to run harder, while the lower-utilisation plant retains only the functions that still fit the revised network.
The 2026/27 campaign is scheduled to be Nakskov’s final sugar-production run if negotiations proceed as planned. By January 2027, Nordzucker expects Nykøbing to carry Danish manufacturing, with Nakskov continuing as a packaging service centre rather than a beet-processing factory.
