Mills: The sugar canes is received in the yard and transported to fed by conveyor to a heavy shredder of horizontal feed and thus facilitate the extraction of juice in the mills, at this stage, using the pressure exerted by the toothed rollers or maces, it´s possible to achieves the extraction of juice from the cane. To improve the efficiency of this process, water is added to the bagasse which runs to the last mill, the process known as imbibition, in addition, the juice extracted in each mill is recirculated to the first, which is called maceration.

The bagasse that comes from the last mill is the first by-product of the process, which is used as fuel in boilers to produce steam used in power generation and mechanical power generation through turbine; the steam produced in this equipment, is used as thermal energy in the process of making sugar in warming and brewing. In this way the Ingenio Risaralda is self-sufficient in energy required to perform all manufacturing operations in a sustainable manner and taking care of the environment.

Clarification: The juice extracted in mills is driven by centrifugal pumps to the type of purification process. It consists in the stages of heating, suffixation, alkalization, clarification and filtration. Through these operations, inputs such as sulfur dioxide, lime slurry and flocculants create bridges with foreign substances other than sucrose in the juice that transmit color and low the purity of the sugar at its end, forming heavier molecules that sediment in the clarifiers of short retention time. This sediment is sent to rotary vacuum filters, where residual sucrose is recovered and then the resulting cake to which it has already been extracted sucrose recovered is sent to the composting process for the production of soil improvers to the fields’ cultivation of sugar cane for their significant mineral content.

Evaporation: The juice that has been purified is subjected to evaporation in the tandem evaporator in series, which can vary in quadruple and quintuple. In these successive evaporations, it eliminates much of the water contained in the juice (about 80%), resulting in a denser material called meladura.

Crystallization: The meladura is sent to the accused vacuum equipment where the crystallization of sucrose occurs. Previously formed nucleuses of sucrose were introduced. This of uniform size to achieve a growth of sugar crystals in a uniform manner at the expense of sucrose content that is transferred from the meladura to the glass.

Centrifugation: Once formed crystals of the desired size and purity, the product formed called “cooked mass” is introduced into the centrifuges, equipment that spin at high revolutions per minute, equipped with a fine mesh of holes that allow only the work of honey while blocking the passage of grains of sugar that are trapped on the inside of the mesh.

The separated honey is called final honey or honey known as “miel de purga”, which is a by-product of the manufacturing process and is not returned to the process because of its low content of sucrose, is commercialized for the subsequent production of other products such as alcohol, food for livestock, acetic acid, and other products of industrial importance.

Drying: The sugar-free out of the honey is leading to the dryer / cooler which is a horizontal rotating drum with blades, or interior hives or shutters that allow the contact of the sugar with hot air from one extreme of the drum to remove moisture-related to the glass and also, allows the contact with cold air by the opposite extreme, for the thermal conditioning of the crystals, so that the outlet temperature of the dryer is very close to the atmosphere, thus avoiding lumpy due to the hygroscopic nature of sugar.

Packaging: The sugar is then driven by belts or screws into the endless sorting machines where the product is selected as the final specification is required, and finally stored in silos or hoppers to be packed in the various presentations provided by Ingenio Risaralda S.A.