Raw materials: cane sugar, beet sugar, and high fructose corn syrup.
Cane sugar is processed into raw sugar by a sequence of operations: harvesting, cutting, crushing, extraction of juice, clarification, evaporation, crystallization, centrifugation and refining.
Beet sugar processing involves harvesting, slicing, extraction of juice, carbonization, evaporation, crystallization and refining.
The heating process used for these processes and the resulting low water activity of the end products greatly decreases the initial microflora with the remaining organisms consisting primarily of heat-resistant spores (Owen, 1977) such as those from Bacillus and Clostridium species. While spores of Clostridium botulinum have been detected in sugar, they are of little relevance due to the low water activity of the confectionery products. For high fructose corn syrup, which utilizes enzymatic processing, the primary organisms of concern are spoilage organisms such as osmophilic yeast like Zygosaccharomyces rouxii and Saccharomyces cerevisiae, which are not relevant to hard candy confectionery processing.
