2021 Autumn Field Trip: Qiaotou Sugar Manufacturing Factory

Qiaotou Sugar Factory officially started its operation on January 15, 1902 and could squeeze 200 tons of sugar cane a day, thus starting the first wave of industrial revolution in Taiwan. It led Taiwan into its glorious era of sugar gold and set many indicating records in the sugar industry of Taiwan. However, due to drastic change of economic environment, the factory squeezed its last sugar cane on February 28, 1999, ending its century-long sugar manufacturing operation. To emphasize the special historical status of Qiaotou Sugar Factory, the former Kaohsiung County Government (now Kaohsiung City Government due to county–municipal incorporation) was designated a county historical heritage preservation area in 1988. Taiwan Sugar Corp. designated this factory a museum of Taiwan’s sugar industry on May 1, 2006. Currently, it preserves a part of the wall of the first sugar factory site, which was built 100 years ago, for people to recall past memories. The whole sugar manufacturing factory was opened to the public for visitors to experience the procedure of sugar manufacturing from transporting sugar cane, squeezing, cleaning, evaporation, crystallizing, molasses separation, and packaging in order to understand the hardship of sugar manufacturing.