Sugar Town (The Netherlands)
The Vierverlaten sugar factory in the village of Hoogkerk is one of the two factories that survived the radical EU policy changes in 2006. During the almost 100 years of its existence the factory became part of the DNA of this small village. In Hoogkerk sugar means work, living in the shade of the factory’s sugar silos, the 24/7 coming and going of beet trucks, and the sweet smell that fills the air every harvest season. In contrast with the laissez-faire of Indonesian sugar towns, this Dutch counterpart might just as well have been on another planet: a regulated, clean, sterile and virginal place, the dominion of almost total automation.
