This study provides a comprehensive assessment of the changing role of molasses within the global sugar economy, tracing its evolution from a residual by‑product to a strategic feedstock in the emerging bioeconomy. It analyses production, trade, and utilisation patterns across major regions, highlighting how molasses markets are shaped by sugar production cycles, energy prices, and policy frameworks. The report reviews traditional applications — ethanol, livestock feed, fermentation, and industrial uses — and explores next‑generation pathways for molasses enabled by biotechnology, such as sustainable aviation fuel (SAF), bio‑based chemicals, bioplastics, and precision‑fermented proteins.
Molasses is presented as a mature example of circular‑economy logic, cascading through multiple industrial systems with minimal waste and strong cross‑sector linkages. Molasses transforms and exemplifies mature circular‑economy logic because it transforms what would otherwise be a low‑value by‑product into multiple high‑value inputs across food, feed, fuel, and fermentation systems, creating a stable, long‑running resource loop. The study also identifies key constraints — compositional variability, impurities, competing demand, logistical challenges, and price volatility which can influence bioconversion economics. It concludes that molasses offers sugar industries a credible diversification route into low‑carbon value chains, positioning it as a cornerstone of future bio‑industrial development and a primary product within integrated, sustainable sugar systems where sugar crop production, processing, energy generation, and by‑product utilisation operate as a coordinated, circular whole — maximising resource efficiency, diversifying revenue streams, and reducing waste across food, feed, fuel, and bio‑industrial pathways.
INTRODUCTION
1. MOLASSES
1.1 WHAT IS MOLASSES
1.2 COMPOSITION OF MOLASSES: BEET VS CANE
1.3 MOLASSES QUALITY PARAMETERS AND THE MOLASSES TRADE
1.4 DESUGARING OF BEET MOLASSES
1.5 DESUGARED SUGAR BEET MOLASSES
2. MAIN MOLASSES USES (CURRENT UTILISATION PATHWAYS)
2.1 MOLASSES AS AN ETHANOL FEEDSTOCK
2.2 MOLASSES FOR FERMENTATION (OTHER THAN DISTILLATION)
2.3 ANIMAL FEED
2.4 FOOD USES
2.5 ANAEROBIC DIGESTION
2.6 MINOR USES
3. MEETING DEMAND: THE ROLE OF TRADE
4. MOLASSES AS AN ANIMAL FEED
4.1 DRIVERS FOR MOLASSES INCLUSION
4.2 MOLASSES AND DDGS
5. MOLASSES AS AN ETHANOL FEEDSTOCK
5.1 BIG USERS OF MOLASSES FOR FUEL ETHANOL
5.2 MOLASSES VALORISATION THROUGH ETHANOL: SELECTED OTHER SUGAR INDUSTRIES
5.3 VALORISATION OF VINASSE
6. THE SUCROSE VALUE OF MOLASSES
7. MOLASSES IN THE EMERGING BIOECONOMY
7.1 CURRENT MOLASSES TO BIOPRODUCT PATHWAYS
7.2 NEXT GENERATION MOLASSES TO BIOPRODUCT PATHWAYS
8. MOLASSES VALORISATION AS A DIVERSIFICATION STRATEGY FOR SUGAR PRODUCERS
CONCLUSIONS