Every few weeks someone emails us asking whether “food grade ICUMSA 45 sugar” is a real, defined product or just a phrase suppliers use to sound official. Fair question. The honest answer is that ICUMSA 45 is a real, measurable colour grade, and “food grade” is the practical way buyers describe sugar that’s clean, safe, and compliant enough to go straight into a food or beverage product without extra processing on your end. Put the two together and you’ve got the grade most manufacturers actually want when they say “give me good white sugar.” This page covers exactly what that means, what we ship, and how the process works from quote to container.
What “Food Grade” Adds on Top of the ICUMSA Number
The ICUMSA number tells you about colour. It doesn’t, by itself, tell you anything about microbiological safety, additive limits, or whether the sugar was processed and packed under conditions suitable for something people are going to eat. That’s where “food grade” comes in — it’s shorthand for sugar produced and packed under food safety management systems (think HACCP principles, GMP, and traceability from mill to bag) and tested for the things that actually matter for direct food use: microbial load, heavy metals, sulphur dioxide residue, and foreign matter. Our food grade ICUMSA 45 sugar ticks all of these boxes, and every batch comes with documentation to prove it rather than just a claim on a spec sheet.
Full Specification Sheet
| Parameter | Specification |
| ICUMSA colour | 45 RBU max |
| Polarization | 99.80° min |
| Moisture | 0.04% max |
| Ash | 0.04% max |
| SO2 residue | 20 ppm max |
| Reducing sugars | 0.04% max |
| Microbiological limits | Within Codex Alimentarius food safety thresholds |
| Heavy metals | Within Codex limits, tested per batch |
| Granulation | Fine, medium, or coarse per order |
| Packing | 50kg PP bags (food-grade liner), jumbo bags, or bulk |
| Shelf life | 24 months, dry storage |
We’re upfront that “Codex limits” is doing some work in that table — Codex Alimentarius is the international food standards body jointly run by the FAO and WHO, and it’s the reference point most national food safety authorities lean on when they don’t have a more specific local standard. If your country has stricter local requirements, tell us and we’ll confirm whether our supply meets them before you commit to an order.
Where This Grade Actually Gets Used
Food grade ICUMSA 45 sugar is the workhorse grade for anyone manufacturing something people consume directly. That covers a wide range of buyers:
- Beverage bottlers — soft drinks, juices, energy drinks, flavoured water
- Bakeries and industrial bread/pastry production
- Confectionery manufacturers — candy, chocolate coatings, gum
- Dairy processors — flavoured milk, yogurt, ice cream
- Sauce, condiment, and preserve manufacturers
- Nutraceutical and supplement producers using sugar as an excipient or carrier
- Institutional food service and catering supply chains buying in bulk
If your business falls into a category not listed here, that’s fine — this is the default grade for direct food use in general, and the list above is illustrative rather than exhaustive.
How We Handle Food Safety Documentation
Buyers sourcing food grade ICUMSA 45 sugar for the first time are often less worried about the sugar itself and more worried about paperwork gaps that hold up customs clearance. We supply a certificate of analysis per batch, a certificate of origin, phytosanitary certificate, and, where the refinery holds them, food safety certifications like ISO 22000, FSSC 22000, or HACCP compliance letters. Halal and Kosher certification is available from select production lines — let us know at the quotation stage if either is a requirement, since not every run is certified for both and we’ll need to route your order to the right facility.
One thing worth saying plainly: if a supplier can’t produce a certificate of analysis with actual lab numbers on it — not a generic template, an actual batch-specific document — that’s a red flag. We don’t ask you to take our word for the specification; we send the paperwork that backs it up before you pay the balance.
Packaging Options for Food Applications
Because this sugar goes directly into food products, packaging matters more here than it might for a strictly industrial buyer. We supply 50kg woven PP bags with a food-grade inner liner as standard, which keeps the sugar protected from moisture and contamination during transit and warehouse storage. For buyers running automated intake lines, we can also arrange 1000–1200kg jumbo bags, and for very large repeat buyers, bulk container loading without bagging is an option worth discussing — it strips out packaging cost but requires the right unloading infrastructure on your end.
Shipping, Lead Times, and Incoterms
We quote FOB, CFR, and CIF depending on what works for your logistics setup. A typical order moves from confirmed contract to vessel departure in 15–25 days, and transit time after that depends entirely on your destination port and the shipping line’s schedule. If you’re working against a hard production deadline on your end, tell us that upfront — we’d rather build in a realistic buffer than promise a date we can’t hit and leave your production line waiting on a container that’s stuck at a transshipment port.
Minimum Orders and How Pricing Works
Standard MOQ for food grade ICUMSA 45 sugar is one 20ft container, roughly 24–25 MT depending on packaging. Pricing tracks the global raw sugar market plus refining and logistics costs, so it moves week to week — we don’t hold a static price list because anyone who does is either quoting stale numbers or padding the price to cover themselves against market swings. Send us your destination port, volume, and timeline, and you’ll get a quote that reflects the actual market on the day you ask, valid for a stated window.
Quality Assurance and Sampling
We support pre-shipment sampling as standard practice, not as a special request you have to fight for. Once your order is confirmed, we send a representative sample from the actual production batch (not a “reference sample” that may or may not match what ships) so you can run your own lab testing before the balance payment and final loading. Independent surveyors — SGS, Intertek, Bureau Veritas — inspect container stuffing on request, and we’re comfortable building specific surveyor requirements into the sales contract if your company has a preferred inspection partner.
Storage Guidance for Food-Grade Batches
Food grade sugar is more sensitive to contamination risk than industrial-use sugar simply because of what happens to it next — it goes straight into something people eat. Store bags on pallets, off the floor, away from walls to allow airflow, and separate from anything with a strong odour (sugar picks up smells from nearby stock more readily than most people expect). Pest control matters more here too; a warehouse with a rodent or insect problem can compromise an entire lot even if the sugar itself tested clean on arrival. If you’re transferring sugar into your own silos or bulk handling systems, make sure those systems are cleaned and inspected on a schedule, since residue buildup from a previous ingredient is a common and avoidable source of contamination complaints.
Where Our Food Grade Supply Comes From
We work with cane sugar refineries that run documented food safety management systems rather than relying on a single end-of-line quality check. That means in-process controls at multiple stages of refining, not just a test on the finished product before it leaves the factory. We visit and audit new supply relationships before adding them to our supplier list, and we don’t switch sourcing origin mid-contract without telling the buyer — if the sugar in your third shipment is coming from a different mill than your first, you’ll know about it in advance, not find out by comparing certificates after the fact.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is food grade ICUMSA 45 sugar the same product as ICUMSA 45 white refined sugar?
Functionally, yes — the underlying sugar is the same refined product. “Food grade” simply emphasizes the safety and compliance documentation angle for buyers whose primary concern is direct food use rather than industrial processing. If you want the fuller technical breakdown of the ICUMSA 45 specification itself, our white refined sugar ICUMSA 45 page goes deeper into the refining and colour grading side.
Can you supply Halal or Kosher certified sugar?
Yes, from specific production runs. Flag this requirement before contracting, since it affects which facility your order gets sourced from and may adjust the lead time slightly.
What happens if a lab test comes back outside spec?
This is rare when working with an established refinery, but if it happens, we resolve it before shipment — either through a replacement batch or a renegotiated contract. We’d rather deal with a spec issue on land than have you discover it after the container has already sailed.
Do you supply smaller test orders for new product development?
We can generally accommodate a smaller trial quantity for buyers doing product development or a first-time supplier evaluation. Reach out with your specific volume need and we’ll tell you what’s realistic.
Ready to Get a Quote
If you’re buying food grade ICUMSA 45 sugar for direct use in a food or beverage product, send us your destination, target volume, and any certification requirements (Halal, Kosher, ISO, non-GMO), and we’ll put together a firm quote with clear validity dates. We also supply related grades — if your operation needs both a food-direct product and something for industrial or non-food processing, take a look at our industrial ICUMSA 45 sugar page for the processing-focused version of the same underlying grade. For background on the international food safety framework this sugar is tested against, the Codex Alimentarius portal is a useful reference if you want to see the standards themselves rather than take our word for it.
