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A Global Sugar Binge Has Surprised Even the World’s Top Traders

  • Stuck at home, people baked more and stimulus checks helped
  • Top importers Indonesia and China sought to boost stockpiles
Making a Traditional Christmas cookies "Vanilla crescents"

Photographer: Anjelika Gretskaia/Moment/Getty Images

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Even with restaurants, cinemas and stadiums shut, people kept binging on sugar.

A home-baking frenzy, stimulus checks and stockpiling all meant that global demand fared quite well last season, proving wrong some of the world’s top sugar traders. What’s more, consumption is set to rebound to a record in the year that began in October, according to Tom McNeill, a director at Brisbane, Australia-based researcher Green Pool Commodity Specialists.