ICUMSA 45 Refined White Sugar

Sparkling white, 99.80° pol — the export benchmark

ICUMSA 45 is the refined white benchmark of the world sugar trade, and the number is a colour measurement: 45 International Units maximum on the ICUMSA scale, which is the sparkling white a beverage bottler needs because any colour in the sugar carries straight through into a clear drink. The rest of the sheet is short and strict — polarisation at 99.80° minimum, meaning sucrose purity, with moisture and ash each at 0.04% maximum, invert sugar below 0.04%, sulphur dioxide within destination food limits, and magnetic particles and sediment controlled. It is produced by refining raw cane sugar, principally in Brazil out of Santos, with Indian and Thai supply behind it. Because the specification is tight and universally understood, ICUMSA 45 trades as a commodity with directly comparable offers, and it prices off the ICE No. 5 white contract in London rather than the raw No. 11.

Buy ICUMSA 45 wherever colour and purity are functional requirements rather than preferences: soft drinks and beverage, confectionery, retail packing, bakery, dairy and pharmaceutical use. It is the correct grade for anything where the sugar must dissolve to a clear, colourless solution. Where it is money wasted is any application that will darken or mask the sugar anyway — a dark bakery product, a caramel, a fermentation feedstock or a distillery can run on mill white or raw sugar at a materially lower price, and the finished product is identical. The recurring problem in this trade is not specification but counterparty: refined sugar attracts a large volume of fraudulent offers with fabricated SGS documents and impossible prices. Verify the seller and the inspection chain, not just the paperwork. CBIL brokers ICUMSA 45 against SGS certification of colour, polarisation, moisture, ash and invert, on FOB Santos, CFR and CIF terms.