In the late 1800s, the average American consumed the equivalent of about 19 pounds of sugar per year. By the early 1900s, that number had more than tripled to 60 pounds a year. Today, the average American eats about 152 pounds of sugar a year, according to the USDA.
That’s a lot of sugar.
And it’s no coincidence that America’s love affair with sugar coincides with the rise of one of the most powerful and ruthless corporations in history: The Sugar Trust.
In 1879, a group of New York businessmen led by Henry O. Havemeyer formed the Sugar Refining Company, which soon came to be known as the Sugar Trust. The trust was a monopolistic partnership that controlled nearly 98 percent of America’s sugar refining capacity.
The Sugar Trust was notorious for its ruthless business practices. It engaged in price-fixing, destroyed competitors through predatory pricing, and bribed politicians to keep sugar tariffs high.
But the Sugar Trust’s monopoly didn’t last forever. In 1898, the US government filed an antitrust lawsuit against the trust, alleging that it was an illegal combination in restraint of trade. The case went all the way to the Supreme Court, which ruled in favor of the government and ordered the trust to be dissolved.
But even though the Sugar Trust is no longer around, its legacy lives on. The company left an indelible mark on American culture and society, and its impact is still being felt today. Here’s how the Sugar Trust changed America forever:
1. It Made Sugar ubiquitous in American life
Before the rise of the Sugar Trust, sugar was a luxury item that only wealthy Americans could afford. But thanks to the trust’s economies of scale and its ability to bring down sugar prices through aggressive price-fixing, sugar became affordable for everyone. And as sugar became more affordable, Americans started consuming more and more of it.
Today, sugar is everywhere in American life. It’s in our breakfast cereals, our sodas, our desserts, and even some of our savory foods like ketchup and spaghetti sauce. In fact, we consume so much sugar that it has been dubbed “the new tobacco.” Just like tobacco companies hook people on cigarettes by getting them addicted to nicotine, food companies use sugar to hook people on their products by making them addictively delicious. And just like tobacco companies deny that their products are harmful even though they know better, food companies are now starting to deny that their products are addictive even though they know better.
