Location: North Ryde, New South Wales, Australia
Founded: 1855
Key People:
Julie Coates (Managing Director)
John Gillam (Chairman)
Employees: 3,000
More About The Manufacturer:[]
Founded in Sydney in 1855 as the Colonial Sugar Refining Company, the company first began refining imported raw sugar, expanding into the Melbourne market in the 1870s. Over the next two decades, mills were established in Queensland and Fiji, which began to process domestically-grown sugar; and in 1891 a large refining complex at Glanville, Adelaide to process sugar from Mauritius. In 1923, the Queensland state government signed an agreement with CSR to refine all of that state's sugar production, a monopoly that was to continue until 1989, 16 years after CSR had left Fiji. At that time, about 80% of production was exported.
CSR separated its sugar and energy businesses from its building products business in 2009, which resulted in the creation of Sucrogen as CSR's sugar and energy business. It then operated seven sugar mills in Queensland: Victoria Mill and Macknade Mill in the Herbert River region, centered around the town of Ingham; Invicta Mill, Inkerman Mill, Kalamia Mill and Pioneer Mill in the Burdekin Region; and Plane Creek Mill at Sarina, south of Mackay. CSR also owned a 75% share in the Sugar Australia refineries in Melbourne and Mackay (the other 25% being Mackay Sugar Co-Operative's) and in the Chelsea Sugar Refinery in Auckland. Using the molasses by-product from the sugar mills, the company also distilled ethanol for use in fuel ethanol manufacture, and varying grades of domestic industrial ethanols for food production and other chemical processes. The CSR brand was used on most of the retail sugar products produced. The production made up around 60% of the sugar on the Australian domestic market, and 80% of that in New Zealand.
Sucrogen was sold to Singapore company Wilmar International in 2010.
In February 1980, CSR acquired construction and mining contractor Thiess in a hostile takeover. In April 1981, the construction division was sold to a consortium of Hochtief, Westfield Group and Leslie Thiess.
CSR Limited is also well known for being the major fuel supplier for the V8 Supercars making its presence known in iRacing.