Company Plans to Offer Employment Opportunities to Some Workers

(Boise) - Amalgamated Sugar Company’s Board of Directors announced today that it will not process sugarbeets in 2005 at the Company’s Nyssa, Oregon plant, while continuing to produce brown sugar at the facility. The plant currently, on a non-seasonal basis, employs about 190 people. The Company will work with appropriate state and local officials to minimize the impacts of the change in operations at Nyssa and will provide a variety of services to employees who may be affected.

Ralph Burton, President and Chief Executive Officer said, “Nyssa is a well run factory. This decision has nothing to do with the quality of work or management at the Nyssa factory, simply the economics of supporting excess capacity with no apparent relief in sight.”

“We intend to keep the brown sugar operation going which will continue to employ more than 30 people in Nyssa. Agricultural support will continue to be serviced from the Nyssa factory. Additionally, we expect to have 30 to 40 construction related jobs at our other facilities,” Burton said.

The Company is facing a squeeze brought about by the combined forces of excess production capacity, importation of sugar containing products, the USDA marketing allotments that limit the amount of sugar it can sell, and the trade pressure from foreign producers, which is contributing to the excess supply of sugar available to the U.S. market. Something had to give, and after careful review the Board decided to reduce production capacity, as well as acreage, to decrease operating costs and improve beet payments.

Burton said the Company has spent months analyzing various options to improve our profitability, while creating a minimal impact on the Company’s workforce and the communities in which we operate - but the economic benefit to the grower-owned Cooperative of running three factories compared to four is significant and cannot be ignored. It is not expected that the change in the Nyssa facility will have any impact on Oregon or Idaho sugarbeet growers who have already agreed to crop acreage reductions of 16% in 2005.

Burton said the increased efficiency of the U.S. sugar industry combined with the dramatic pressure that has been placed on the industry by U.S. trade and marketing policy, and dietary changes have caused the entire domestic sugar industry to struggle.

Both past and proposed international trade agreements have weakened the domestic sugar industry and forced many U.S. companies, including Amalgamated, to evaluate production and workforce needs. The Snake River Board stated, “We have, and will continue to oppose these efforts to weaken basic U.S. industry in the name of “free trade.” Unfortunately, these agreements are highly advantageous to others in the world and very detrimental to a basic U.S. industry. There is no industry more basic to our national security than the food industry.”

The Company operates three other production facilities - Nampa, Twin Falls and Paul, Idaho. The Company is headquartered in Boise, Idaho.

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