Sugar Is Crushing Four Times Faster Than Last Year: 12.85 Lakh Tonnes by 5 November Against a Season Short of Demand
Five weeks into the 2026-27 season, India's sugar mills are running well ahead of last year. By 5 November, 184 mills were crushing and production had reached 12.85 lakh tonnes, against 154 mills and 3.20 lakh tonnes a year ago. Read alone, that is a comfortable start. Read against the full-season balance, it is not: the season opened on the thinnest stock cushion in over a decade, and the main forecasts now put production below consumption. Early pace and season outcome are two different numbers, and this year they point in opposite directions.
The early surge is real, and it is mostly Maharashtra
The acceleration inside the season is steep. On 25 October, ISMA counted 107 mills crushing with production of about 4 lakh tonnes, against 0.6 lakh tonnes a year earlier. Eleven days later the mill count had risen by 77 and output had more than tripled. Maharashtra did most of that work: 136 mills in Maharashtra produced 10.78 lakh tonnes, against 101 mills and 1.23 lakh tonnes a year ago. Uttar Pradesh had just 19 mills running and 0.20 lakh tonnes produced, with most western UP mills still to start. Karnataka's 0.90 lakh tonnes came from seven factories continuing from the special season, its main season still to begin. A national total carried by one state is a fragile total: until UP and Karnataka reach full pace, the headline pace says more about Maharashtra's calendar than the country's supply.
| Sugar balance, 2026-27 (Oct–Sep) | Figure | Basis |
|---|---|---|
| Opening stock, 1 October 2026 | ~36 lakh tonnes (3.6 MT) | ISMA carryover from 2025-26 |
| Production to 25 October | ~4 lakh tonnes (107 mills) | ISMA |
| Production to 5 November | 12.85 lakh tonnes (184 mills) | ISMA |
| Production forecast — ISMA, via Avadh Sugar presentation, 5 Nov 2026 | ~26 MT | Forecast |
| Production forecast — AgriMandi.live via ChiniMandi CEO, Informist, 2 Nov 2026 | ~27 MT gross | Forecast |
| Consumption estimate — ISMA | 28.5–29 MT | Estimate |
| Implied gap at the 27 MT forecast | ~1.5 MT short of ~28.5 MT consumption | ChiniMandi CEO, Informist, 2 Nov 2026 |
Early-season production: ISMA releases of 25 October and 5 November 2026. Forecasts are labelled forecasts with source and date; they are not outturns. Farmioc.
The full-season arithmetic does not close
Start with what the season inherited. ISMA puts the carryover from 2025-26 at around 36 lakh tonnes; the Avadh Sugar investor presentation, filed on 5 November, puts it more precisely at about 3.66 million tonnes against about 5 million tonnes a year earlier. Against that cushion, the forecasts sit below demand. The same presentation cites an ISMA forecast of about 26 MT for 2026-27, down from about 27.95 MT net of diversion last season — a forecast dated 5 November 2026, not a result. A second forecast, from AgriMandi.live and set out by ChiniMandi chief executive Uppal Shah in an Informist interview on 2 November 2026, expects about 27 million tonnes gross, down about 12 per cent, against consumption of about 28.5 million tonnes — in his words, a deficit of around 1.5 MT. ISMA's own consumption estimate runs slightly higher, at 28.5–29 million tonnes. Two forecasts, one conclusion: even the higher production number does not cover the lower consumption number. The gap falls on a 3.6 MT opening stock never sized for it, or on imports that have so far delivered only about 0.26 million tonnes of the 1 million tonne duty-free quota, on the interview's industry figures.
Why the cane itself is the constraint
The shortfall is not a milling problem. It is a crop problem, and it was set by the monsoon. The Avadh presentation records 759.4 mm of rainfall in 2026, 12.6 per cent below normal and the first deficient monsoon since 2015, with dry spells cutting cane weight and sucrose in Maharashtra and Karnataka. The early numbers already show the cost: Maharashtra's average recovery was only 7.04 per cent as of 25 October, because mills started on immature cane, and Shah expects the state season to run about 90 days against 104 last year, with output down around 20 per cent. UP and Karnataka are expected to hold near last year, so the national decline sits where the rain failed. One offset is already spent: with diversion to ethanol barred this year, gross and net production are nearly the same. Last season roughly 3 million tonnes of sugar went to ethanol; this season that sugar stays sugar — and the forecasts still fall short.
Flow is being managed because stock cannot be
Policy is working the only lever left: movement. The Food Ministry's 1 October release cut the dealer stock limit to 1,000 quintals, 15 days, from 15 October to 30 November, with 2,000 quintals for Kolkata and Assam, and recorded retail prices down 15 per cent from the August peak and ex-mill prices down about 28 per cent. Fortnightly mill sale quotas do the same job upstream: mills must sell at least 45 per cent of each fortnight's quota in the first week, a rule Shah credits with turning sugar on paper into sugar on trucks. Neither measure creates a tonne of supply. Both decide how fast existing stock reaches buyers, which is why quota releases, not arrivals alone, set the price tone week to week. For lenders, the interview names the mill pressure point plainly: less sugar per tonne of cane, a fixed cane price, and no ethanol income from cane juice or B-heavy molasses. Liquidity, not demand, is the mill risk this season.
The decision
For FMCG and bulk buyers: contract against the balance, not the crushing headline. A season forecast at 26–27 MT against 28.5–29 MT of consumption does not soften because November started fast; keep cover rolling inside the fortnightly quota rhythm and treat any December price dip on full-pace arrivals as a buying window, not a trend. For traders: the binding dates are UP and Karnataka reaching full crushing pace — until both are visible in the weekly production releases, Maharashtra's pace is the market's pace, and it is running on low-recovery cane. For lenders: watch recovery and season length in Maharashtra before sanctioning against projected inventory; a 90-day season at thin recovery yields less saleable stock per tonne of cane than the same mill produced last year. Farmioc's PriceHub tracks sugar prices, trends and forecasts alongside the other 200-plus crops it covers, and DataStore, Farmioc's agriculture data analytics platform, holds a balance like this one — opening stock, forecast range, quota calendar — in a single view, revised as each ISMA release lands. The early surge is genuine. So is the deficit behind it.