Deep within an upper floor of the Domino Sugar Chalmette refinery, thereβs a high-tech hub hidden beneath the plantβs antique shell.
Here, in the control room in an upper story of the 1.5 million-square-foot facility, operators watch over walls of monitors alit with a multicolored array of trendlines that show the status of key refinery operations.
βThat green line is the production line that we have,β said Refinery Technical Manager Chris Combs. βWe want that line to be flat, and as high up that graph as possible.β
Austin Torbert watches computers as he monitors 11 tanks boiling sugar at Domino Sugar Chalmette Refinery on Tuesday, September 29, 2026. (STAFF PHOTO BY CHRIS GRANGER)
PHOTO BY CHRIS GRANGER
Other screens show the status of individual batches as they undergo the filtration processes that transform the millions of pounds of raw cane sugar processed by the plant around the clock into 32 types of sugar products β white, brown, powdered, liquid, extra-fine, coarse, cubes, molasses and more.
The mammothΒ refinery, located in Arabi although named after the nearby historic Chalmette Battlefield, has shaped St. Bernard Parish for more than half of its 117-yearΒ history, surviving , a deadly and devastating .
Today, its 535 employees produce about 6 million pounds of processed sugar a day β about one-sixth of all cane sugar consumed in the U.S. β and for the last quarter-century, the refinery has been owned by the worldβs largest cane sugar producer, ASR Group, whose executives have described it as the Florida-based firmβs largest and most important American asset.
The Domino Sugar Chalmette Refinery on Tuesday, September 29, 2026. (STAFF PHOTO BY CHRIS GRANGER)
PHOTO BY CHRIS GRANGER
Now, the plant is undergoing the largest capital investment in ASRβs history with that executives say will significantly reduce the refineryβs energy and water usage.
Sizable scoops
Louisiana sugar farmers supply 100% of the raw cane sugar that feeds the refineryβs 24-hour-a-day operations, with a majority arriving via the Mississippi River. Every year, about 200 barges, plus a steady stream of trucks, deliver more than 750,000 tons of it from sugar mills upriver.
The plant produces its own potable water and electricity, pulling water from the river to run a 9-megawatt natural gas power plant on site.
Raw sugar is unloaded from barges moored along the Mississippi River at the Domino Sugar Chalmette Refinery on Tuesday, September 29, 2026. (STAFF PHOTO BY CHRIS GRANGER)
PHOTO BY CHRIS GRANGER
It takes workers a full day to unload a single barge, each of which can hold about 3.5 million pounds of sugar. Whenever a sugar-filled barge is moored at the refineryβs wharf, longshoremen operate giant clamshell cranes that roll on rails as they scoop up bucket after bucket of the beige granules, 10,000 pounds at a time.
At the riverside, the raw ingredient is dropped onto scales and weighed before itβs carried via the plantβs vast conveyer belts network to a pair of multistory sugar sheds piled high with colossal dunes of raw sugar.
Manager Keenan Hubbard stands in a massive warehouse where raw sugar is piled high, awaiting processing at the Domino Sugar Chalmette Refinery on Tuesday, September 29, 2026. (STAFF PHOTO BY CHRIS GRANGER)
PHOTO BY CHRIS GRANGER
Delivery trucks are weighed before and after unloading onto their loads directly into the sheds, which resemble an A-frame airplane hanger and can, together, hold more than 120 million pounds of sugar, with a special retractable conveyer belt depositing incoming loads onto the pile.
From there, a front-end loader scoops up the sugar into a hopper and begins the refining process.
Crystal method
The goal of refining is to remove the color β the whiter the sugar, the purer the sucrose β and to shape its crystals to meet a range of customer specifications.
First, the raw sugar is βwashedβ to strip the film of molasses that coats each crystal through a process called affination, leaving behind a brown, crusty waste product called βmudβ thatβs distributed to farms.
βWe call it melting. We're not actually melting the sugar; we're dissolving it in water,β Combs said. βAt that point, it stays in a liquid phase until we purposely make it back into sugar crystals again, after we filter it.β
In the 12-story βpan house,β the syrup is boiled under a vacuum, which lowers its boiling point to prevent scorching or coloration, in 11 large vacuum pans β seven for white sugar, three for molasses and one for brown sugar.
βWe boil the pan at about 150 to 165 degrees. That allows us to control the supersaturation of the pan, then we'll introduce what we call βseedβ to the pan,β Combs said.
The βseedβ crystals are created on-site by finely grinding up existing sugar, which provide surfaces for the dissolved sugar molecules to attach.
βThat's where our actual crystals will start to grow from,β he said.
A batch of everyday table sugar might take 90 minutes, while the large-grain crystals found in cookies or candies can take up to six hours.
Monitors inside the control room show little green dots indicating the size of the crystals as theyβre cultivated.
Shake it up
From the pans, the sugar spins through centrifuges and tumble dryers, then waits in silos with enough spaceΒ for more than 15 million pounds of finished product.
Vibrating screeners sort the crystals by size, and gravity carries them down to the production floor, where dozens of packaging lines fill everything from 1-pound bags to 2,000-pound totes.
Joe Serpas, who has worked at Domino Sugar Chalmette Refinery for 40 years, works the assembly line as various forms of sugar are boxed and bagged on Tuesday, September 29, 2026. (STAFF PHOTO BY CHRIS GRANGER)
PHOTO BY CHRIS GRANGER
Each line needs only one or two people. Networked machines seal and weigh the bags while workers watch for problems, with a robotic arm knocking out any package that misses its weight. The equipment monitoring the line is checked regularly to make sure itβs functional, with a metal-filled dummy container on hand for testing purposes.
βThe operator will plop it on the scale and send it through the metal detector,β Combs saidΒ on a recent tour of the facility.Β βThat way, we know that's going to trigger the metal detection.β
As much as the refinery feels like a modern, automated assembly line inserted into a turn-of-the-century landmark, the historic 70-acre plant is expanding as it continues, as this newspaper , to play an important role in the development of St. Bernard Parish and βin enhancing the commercial interest of New Orleans.β
Over the summer, workers took down an old, unused smokestack, and distributed its bricks to members of the community, longtime plant workers and their families.
Construction on the first phase of a nearly $800 million expansion at the Domino Sugar Chalmette Refinery on Tuesday, September 29, 2026. (STAFF PHOTO BY CHRIS GRANGER)
PHOTO BY CHRIS GRANGER
Foundation work is underway for the new filtration building, , behind the sprawling complex. It will "significantly" cut down on production costs, though the final system design is still under review, according to Peter OβMalley, ASR Groupβs vice president of corporate relations.Β Β
Nevertheless, some things will stay the same in the sticky-floored factory. The refineryβs iconic Christmas tree remains on the 14th floor of the filtration building, now staying up year-round to spare staff from an intimidating installation, unplugged until the holidays.