Safety: a shared responsibility
Safety is an absolute top priority. We strive for a proactive safety culture within our organisation — a culture where everyone acknowledges risks and works on a safer work environment. This commitment applies to our own staff, but just as much to contractors and visitors at our locations.
At the instigation of the Südzucker Group, we launched the broad campaign of "Safety First". Each month we focus on a specific safety theme, with concrete tips and attention points in the work space.
We regularly organise safety walks, safety talks, and Gemba walks. During these tours, our hierarchical line engages in dialogue with our colleagues: they offer feedback and what goes well, point out potential risks, and stimulate open communication about safety.
Safety is not a checklist, but an attitude — one that we will adopt together.
Quality: from beet to finished product
At Raffinerie Tirlemontoise, quality has been at the front and centre of everything we do since 1836. From our choice of beet seeds to the finished products on store shelves: we carefully guard every step in the process with care and precision.
Our quality approach begins in the field. In collaboration with our growers and the IRBAB-KBIVB, we guide the growth of sugar beets. Only beet seed approved by the IRBAB-KBIVB may be sown. This way we stimulate sustainable practices and build toward long-term relationships based on trust.
Upon their arrival in our factories, our beets are carefully checked for multiple quality parameters. Only beets that meet our high standards, will be processed into sugar, molasses, or animal feed.
Even during production itself our laboratories make constant checks. The central laboratory in Tienen coordinates these analyses and develops new analytical methods, supported by years of expertise and international collaboration via ICUMSA. In locations where our specialties are produced – such as pearl sugar, fondant, or candy sugar – local labs ensure that quality standards remain consistent.
Our quality system is based on international standards such as IFS Food, BRCGS Food Safety and FCA, and also on European and national laws. Every year, all our locations experience external audits, including a validation audit by the FASFC (Federal Agency for the Safety of the Food Chain).
By constantly measuring, improving, and investing in knowledge, we guarantee safe, reliable, and high quality products for our industrial customers and consumers.
Enviroment: sustainable on the field and in the factory
At Raffinerie Tirlemontoise, care for the environment is not secondary, but at the heart of everything we do. Sustainability is in each step of the process – from the growing of sugar beets to the last phase in our factories.
On the field, our agronomists work closely with farmers to make the cultivation as sustainable as possible. We combine our efforts with scientific partners such as the IRBAB-KBIVB, but also the CRA-W (Centre de Recherche d'Agriculture - Wallonie) and PIBO (development of new cultivation technologies). This way we constantly strive for better varieties, less crop protection, and greater resilience of beets.
In our factories, nothing is lost. Sugar beets consist for 75% out of water. This water is reused in our production process. What remains, such as the pulp, gets a second life as valuable cattle feed. This way we make optimal use of every beet.
We also keep investing in innovative technologies to make our production greener. In 2023 we started using a new vertical diffusion tower, and in 2025 an advanced industrial water pump. This is a first in Europe and allow us to generate heat more efficiently while saving thousands of tonnes of CO₂ every year.
Our goal? To constantly become more sustainable. To follow up on this evolution, data and measurements are indispensable. That is why we keep track of as much as possible. After all, the numbers tell the tale.
Together with Südzucker Group, we strive for a clear ambition: climate neutrality by 2050. Not an empty promise, but a validated path, recognised by the Science Based Targets initiative (SBTi).
