Shrouded in secrecy, officials from Chemung County, NY, gave approval on April 1 for a major candy manufacturer to build a 100,000-square-foot facility in the county.  The factory is expected to create 100 jobs in the region.

Those close to the project refused to release the name of the company, saying only, “When the name and product comes out, it will be a name and product that people will know, I think almost internationally.”

This secret company is not alone in building up its domestic holdings. 

There have been other candy company expansion announcements in the United States over the past six months, including a 300,000-square-foot addition to Lindt USA’s headquarters in New Hampshire and a $75 million Mars Snackfood US expansion in Pennsylvania.

Despite well-documented expansion projects, representatives for the sweetener industry continue to threaten that they will move to other countries unless Congress guts America’s sugar policy to lower prices.

“Big candy companies have been using scare tactics like this for years,” explained Dale Murden, a sugarcane grower from Texas.  “But their actions speak louder than words, and they are growing not shrinking.”

Murden also says the notion that sugar prices are high in the United States is false. 

“I’m receiving less for my sugar today than I did in 1980, but I’m paying a lot more to grow that sugar,” he said.  “And grocery shoppers are paying more for candy bars today than in 1980, so it looks like the farmers, not the candy companies are getting the short end of the stick.”

According to a 2006 Department of Commerce study, growth in the country’s sugar-containing product sector has been double that of food companies that don’t use sugar.

Times haven’t been so sweet for sugar producers.  Slumping prices and declining profit margins have led to the closure of 53 sugar-producing facilities—more than half of the country’s sugar businesses—since 1985, said Murden.