California and Hawaiian Sugar Company
sugar company

California and Hawaiian Sugar Company (C&H Sugar) is an American sugar processing and distribution company. Originally organized as a cooperative in 1921, it encountered a severe decline in sugar markets and passed through a series of owners in the latter half of the 20th century. In 2017, its Crockett, California, refinery processed its last shipment of Hawaiian sugar but continues to produce sugar from other locations. The Crockett Refinery employs more than 450 people and produces 14% of the nation's cane sugar.
History
The California and Hawaiian Sugar Company was founded in 1906 and operated from 1921 to 1993 as an agricultural cooperative marketing association owned by the member sugar companies in Hawaiʻi. The first general manager and longest serving president of the company was George M. Rolph. Its headquarters are in Crockett near the Carquinez Bridge in unincorporated Contra Costa County, California.
In 1993, the member companies sold their interests in C&H to Alexander & Baldwin in Honolulu, and the refining company's status changed from a cooperative to a stock corporation. Alexander & Baldwin subsequently sold its majority share to an investment group, Citicorp Venture Capital (CVC) in 1998, retaining a 40% common stock interest in the recapitalized company. American Sugar Refining bought C&H in 2006, merging it with its other sugar operations.
The public source identifies “California and Hawaiian Sugar Company” as sugar company. This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around California, Hawaiian and Sugar.
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Contemporary correspondence, administrative files and participant testimony can test how later narratives organized the event or institution. The source revision retrieved here is dated Aug 12, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q5021197. VIAF identifies the subject as 130195209. The Library of Congress control number is n81070533. 1 of 3 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1921, 2017, 1906 and 1993.
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This entry incorporates text from “California and Hawaiian Sugar Company” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.