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Choosing the correct trailer to carry Sugar Beet at 44 tonnes on UK roads is relatively simple. You can use either a walking floor trailer to carry beet or more conventionally in the UK a tipping trailer. 20 per cent of world sugar comes from sugar beet https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sugar_beet. Sugar in the form of sucrose can make up between 12 and 23 percent of the beet root by mass. The rest is 75% water and then 5 per cent pulp. Pulp can be carried on tipping trailers but is probably best carried on a walking floor trailer for safety. Beets have always been used to sweeten foods such as cakes but modern sugar production really took off in the last 100 years. Most of the value of the beet is in the sugar but 10% of the harvest value is in the molasses and cellulose pulp.
If you are excited by sugar - and who is not then you can get a lot of information from https://www.britishsugar.co.uk/. British Sugar use 2300 growers in the UK mostly in the East Midlands and East Anglia to grow 8 million tonnes of sugar beet per annum. 500,000 tonnes of pulp are moved into the animal feed industry following production and 1.5 million tonnes of sugar move out of the 4 production facilities. Hiding in amongst the beet deliveries is about 200,000 tonnes of the UK's best topsoils. The Sugar beet top soil will move out on tipping trailers - often smaller aggregate trailers at different times of year.
The 8.5 millon tonnes of beet will mean 300,000 tipping trailer or moving floor journeys during the season. The season runs from October to March in the UK and will vary in intensity due to weather such as frozen soil or heavy rain slowing harvesting and haulage. In the season there may be as many 300 trailers on the annual sugar beet campaign tipping as many as 1000 tips per day. Incredible - well done!
Newton Trailers current first choice trailer for the transport of Sugar Beet is:
Recommended First Choice Trailer: Knapen 90 cuyd Walking Floor
Recommended Second Choice Trailer: STAS 70 cuyd Tipping Trailer
Recommended Sales Options: Automatic Sheet System; Automatic Door; VWS Weigher and TASCC logger
Recommended Parts
Seasonal Hire: Newton Hire Trailers to Carry Beet Pulp
Tascc Product: Yes
Product Density: 600 kgs/m3
Trailer Volume: 70 cuyd
Region: East Anglia and East Midlands
8 millon tonnes of Sugar Beet Transported; 4 production centers
200,000 tonnes of Top Soil
500,000 tonnes of Beet Pulp to Animal Feed
Sugar Beet are a seasonal crop in the UK. The root swells into a sugar store in the summer and is ready to lift in September or October. The beet is lifted and piled in great mounds on aprons or pads at the sides of fields throughout East Anglia and East Midlands. Lifting the beet in the field is weather dependent and heavy rain causes days lost and iced up ground also can prevent lifting. The beet 'Campaign' for transport to the 4 sugar production sites is from October to March. The pulp is moved from site during this period and top soil also runs year round. Almost all contracts to grow and sell sugar beet run back to British Sugar.
A trend apparent in beet transport in Europe is that growing numbers of transport companies are switching from tippers to moving floor trailers. The Netherlands is at the forefront of this trend. High numbers of Knapen moving floor trailers take part in the beet campaign thanks to the benefits they offer in terms of maximum load factor and safety for drivers and their surroundings. These features are persuading growing numbers of beet carriers in other European countries such as Germany, Belgium and France to switch to moving floor trailers. Knapen has been supplying trailers for sugar beet transport since 1984. These trailers are trialled and improved year on year. The result: a moving floor trailer with no technical risks!
.jpg "Sugar Beet Loaded onto a Knapen Walking Floor Trailer")
Beet tips and beet pulp as return loads: The UK makes about 500,000 tonnes of Sugar beet pulp each year that is then used to make animal feed. Because you can unload the trailer horizontally, beet tips and beet pulp can be easily carried as a return load. The stickiness of beet pulp often causes problems when tipping. In the old days when using a tipping trailer to move beet pulp my father would have carried a couple of bales of straw on the back of the truck. He would then have sprinkled it liberally on the floor of the trailer and loaded the pulp on top. Then the load would have moved freely out of the trailer as he tipped. Nowadays health and safety makes these types of 'old school' methods more difficult to do. Very sticky pulp can even lead to a tipping trailer falling over in use. The ability to carry return loads sharply reduces the number of empty kilometres and significantly increases the efficiency of each trip.
There are approximately 2,300 sugar beet growers in the UK https://www.britishsugar.co.uk/ There are 4 sugar production centers in the UK: Bury St Edmunds, Wissington, Cantley, & Newark.
Sugar Beet Song: insert MP3 here.
Sugar Beet Trailer Option: Sugar beet as a large root vegetable moves relatively easily out of a trailer. In colder countries sugar beet with a lot of soil or moisture on them can freeze in the back of a tipping trailer. Therefore in these countries companies like STAS can warm the side wall of the trailer using the exhaust gases from the truck and venting them through the trailer box using a simple Venturi effect cone at the rear of the trailer and providing a conduit route through the panels. I have no data on the effectiveness of this but plenty get sold and farmers aren't known for spending with no effect.
Sugar Beet Trailer Option: a Quicksilver liner can reduce the friction on the floor and side wall of the tipping trailer making it more easy to tip. These add 350 kgs weight to the trailer but massively improve the abilty to tip sticky sugar beet pulp. There are some questions about liners and TASCC in that material can get trapped and rot between the liner and the original floor of the trailer.
Sugar Beet Trailer Option: Automatic Roll Over Sheet System. OK so these are the norm these days. British Sugar are requesting that all loads are covered. So this makes it easier. Downside is cost and weight - upside is speed and safety. The load is covered and beet do not fall to the ground around Bury. Push button and you are covered. No having to climb the catwalk in all weathers.
Sugar Beet Trailer Option: Automatic locking rear door. British Sugar are requesting that the doors of the trailer can be automatically released on site to reduce banksman injuries (and deaths).
Sugar Beet Trailer Option: Internal body camera and delete the catwalk. Falls from catwalks do occur. Automatic sheet systems and cameras can reduce the need for catwalk. Many factories including British Sugar do not want to see any operations off a catwalk - so supervising loading etc can be done with a body camera.
Sugar Beet Trailer Option: VWS Weigher. Weighers are normal. GPS Tracking weighers are not. You can load your product onto the app and stay within the TASCC logging and auditing requirement - automatically.
Sugar Beet Tipping Trailer Option: In Europe it is common to change the rear door of the trailer for the sugar beet season to something more exotic. I do not know why but here it is:
Newton Trailers supply 44 tonne UK road going trailers. However if you are moving beet off the field these are they type of trailer that are used. We recommend as a sugar beet trailer Richard Western's 'Beet Wellington'. It is able to pile beet high into a heap. It will not really be used to run from Farm to Processing Plant as the payload on the public highway over distance has legal complications: CLICK HERE TO GO TO RICHARD WESTERN TRAILERS
If you really are weird and bored you could try listening to our sugar beet trailer song:
If you really enjoy your work and love our trailers then you could indulge yourself or perhaps that special person in your life with a sugar beet T shirt. Follow the link: CLICK HERE
Sugar beet as you have probably guessed has a high quantity of sugar in it and fibre too. Good for those bowels and gut biome. So to sweeten your day you might like to try this recipe curtesy of Moldovian Lena for Moldovan Sugar Beet and Walnut Pie: CLICK HERE
| Best Match | Options | Volume | Payload | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| New | Knapen Biomass Moving Floor Trailer | 130 CuYds (99.4m3) | 27850kg | |
| Also See | New Knapen Agricultural Moving Floor Trailer | 70 CuYds (53.5m3) | 29100kg | |
