European Union sugar companies have emerged from the cocoon of production quotas and are now fighting to survive in a fiercely competitive world market with prices and profits plunging. EU has said it expects to report an operating loss of 100 million to 200 million euros in its sugar segment in 2018/19 while its rivals are also struggling. At the current price level, there is hardly a sugar company in Europe which can still produce at a break-even. EU abolished limits on sugar beet production at the end of September 2017, dramatically boosting output and paving the way for the EU to become a net exporter for the first time in more than a decade. The rise in EU production has come at a time when appetite for sugar is declining in the increasingly health-conscious trading bloc, throwing supplies onto a world market already awash with the sweetener.