Originally Posted by
SRQ Guy
In addition to other reasons mentioned above, HFCS is much cheaper than sucrose thanks to US farm subsidies and protectionist sugar tariffs.
The latter reason was, I thought, why HFCS is used in place of sugar for processed food/beverages in the U.S. I understand the quotas and tariffs have been in place for over 20 years.
It's a headache to go through but quite a bit of info is posted here:
http://www.fas.usda.gov/itp/imports/Sugar/sugartrq.asp
It seems sugar imports in the U.S. have been quota/tariff free before 1934 and between 1974 and 1982.
One possible advantage to ethanol production driving up the price of corn, though, might be that sucrose becomes cheaper than HFCS.
Or maybe result in the abandonment of the tariffs and quotas. Do note that ethanol has quite a bit less energy content than straight gas (on a volumetric basis) so it isn't a panacea.