Tate & Lyle has announced it is quitting beet sugar production with the closure of its five eastern European processing plants due to cuts in European Union sugar prices.
Tate said it was closing its beet processing plants in Hungary, the Czech Republic and Slovakia with the loss of about 800 jobs, and that it will renounce its sugar quota in return for compensation under an EU sugar regime reform scheme.
Some 40 per cent of the compensation is due to be paid in July 2008, and the remaining 60 per cent in February 2009.
Ireland's sugar industry closed earlier this year after Greencore, which controlled the industry, decided it was too expensive to produce sugar and opted for an EU closure plan worth €145 million in compensation.
The 80-year history of the industry here came to an end with the closure of the Mallow plant in May.