0. Kokuto tastes great. But what is it, exactly?
Kokuto is great. White sugar is just sweet. Kokuto is sweet too, but it also has a slightly toasty smell and a deeper, richer taste. If you see kokuto candy in a shop in Kagoshima or Okinawa, it suddenly looks very tempting.
That leads to a simple question.
Is kokuto made from sugarcane?
Yes.
And real kokuto does not just mean "brown sugar." Under the definition of Japan's Consumer Affairs Agency, kokuto (also called kuro-zato, "black sugar") is made by boiling down sugarcane juice and letting it cool and harden without taking out the molasses. [1]
In rough terms:
Press the cane → boil down the juice → harden all the sweet stuff together.
Kokuto is a sugar that keeps a lot of the sugarcane's own character.
1. Dark sugar is not always kokuto
This point matters more than it seems.
Japan's Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries (MAFF) separates kokuto from "processed kokuto." [2]
Kokuto is made by boiling down sugarcane juice.
Processed kokuto is made by adding kokuto to raw sugar, molasses, or similar ingredients. It looks dark and tastes strong, so it seems the same, but on the label it is a different product.
So if you want real kokuto, read the ingredient list, not just the product name.
English speakers need one more warning. The words "brown sugar" do not mean exactly the same thing as Japanese kokuto. Much of the brown sugar sold abroad is refined white sugar with molasses added back.
In this article, "kokuto" means Japanese kokuto: sugarcane juice hardened with its molasses still in it.
2. Is ordinary white sugar made from sugarcane too?
The answer is "often, but not always."
Sugar has two main raw materials. [3]
One is sugarcane. It grows in warm places. In Japan it is grown mainly in the southwestern islands of Kagoshima Prefecture and in Okinawa Prefecture.
The other is the sugar beet. It looks like a big turnip. In Japan it is grown mainly in Hokkaido.
Both can be turned into the same basic sugar.
White sugar is not white because it comes from a white plant. It is white because the juice from the cane or the beet is cleaned, the crystals are separated, and the sugar is refined.
So it is not true that
only kokuto comes from sugarcane, and white sugar is something else.
A lot of white sugar starts as sugarcane too.
3. "Production" can mean very different numbers
This is the part that confuses people most.
"Kokuto production," "sugarcane harvest," and "amount of sugar made from sugarcane" are three different numbers.
According to the Agriculture & Livestock Industries Corporation (ALIC), in the 2024 sugar year (October 2024 to September 2025), Kagoshima and Okinawa together grew 1,404,000 tonnes of sugarcane. The cane sugar made from it came to 151,000 tonnes. [4]
Kokuto and other "non-centrifugal" sugars (sugars that keep their molasses) are much smaller.
MAFF's outlook for the 2025 sugar year (October 2025 to September 2026) expected 9,000 tonnes of domestic non-centrifugal sugar and 6,000 tonnes of imported non-centrifugal sugar. [5]
So even though it is all "sugar":
- Sugarcane as a crop: over a million tonnes
- Sugar made from sugarcane: hundreds of thousands of tonnes
- Kokuto and similar sugars: around ten thousand tonnes
If you see "9,000 tonnes" in one place and "1.4 million tonnes" in another, you may wonder which is wrong. Neither is. They count different things.
4. Okinawa is the home of kokuto. Kagoshima matters too, but in a different place
Kokuto in Japan is made mainly in Okinawa Prefecture and on the southwestern islands of Kagoshima Prefecture.
In a 2023 industry report, ALIC said that about 90% of Japan's kokuto, then around 9,000 tonnes a year, came from Okinawa. [6]
So if someone asks where kokuto comes from, the short answer is Okinawa.
Kagoshima has important growing areas too.
The catch is that "Kagoshima Prefecture" and "Kagoshima City" are not the same place.
Sugarcane in Kagoshima Prefecture grows mainly on Tanegashima and the Amami Islands. A MAFF report on the islands says the 2022 sugarcane harvest in Kagoshima Prefecture was 534,100 tonnes. By island, Tokunoshima had about 32%, Tanegashima about 29%, and Kikaijima and Okinoerabujima about 15% each. [7]
So if you walk around central Kagoshima City and think,
"Where are the sugarcane fields? This looks like any other city,"
you are not wrong.
The fields are across the sea.
5. What does a sugarcane field look like?
Sugarcane is a kind of grass.
From far away, a field can look like a huge meadow or a patch of tall pampas grass. The leaves are long and thin. The stalks are thick and have joints, like bamboo.
A grown field is often taller than a person.
If you see one for the first time, you might think:
"Is that corn?" "Just a big grass?" "Everything is waving the same way."
To tell the difference, look at the stalks, not the leaves.
The stalk is thick and jointed, and the sugar is stored inside it.
The juice squeezed from those stalks becomes kokuto, and it also becomes ordinary sugar.
The reason you don't see this scenery in Kagoshima City is that sugarcane is not spread evenly over the whole prefecture.
6. Not only local: some kokuto is imported
You might wonder, "If Japan grows so little, will kokuto run out?"
It is imported as well.
According to ALIC's summary of Ministry of Finance trade data, Japan imported 6,493 tonnes of non-centrifugal sugar between January and December 2025. [8]
The main countries were:
- China: 3,350 tonnes
- Thailand: 2,603 tonnes
- Philippines: 266 tonnes
- Bolivia: 142 tonnes
China and Thailand together make up about 92%.
So Japan's kokuto-type sugar comes from two sources:
domestic cane from Okinawa and the southwestern islands of Kagoshima + imports, mostly from China and Thailand
Raw sugar, the material for ordinary white sugar, is also imported in large amounts. In recent years the main suppliers have been Australia and Thailand. [9]
The sugar aisle looks white and quiet. Behind it is a lot of international shipping.
7. "If Kagoshima's volcano erupts, will we still have kokuto?" A terrible question
Look at a volcano for too long on a trip and your thoughts can go strange.
"What if it erupts in a big way?" ↓ "But I love kokuto. I can't lose it." ↓ "Wait. There are no sugarcane fields in Kagoshima City." ↓ "So the kokuto front line isn't here?"
It is a very tasteless chain of thought.
Here are the plain facts. Kagoshima's sugarcane is grown mostly on Tanegashima and the Amami Islands, not in Kagoshima City. Okinawa has an even bigger share of kokuto. And some is imported.
So it is not true that
if a big disaster hits Kagoshima City, kokuto disappears from Japan at once.
Of course, damage to the city, human lives, ports and transport, and the economy of the whole prefecture are separate matters. How far a big eruption reaches depends on its size, the wind, and more, so you can't say "the fields are on islands, so everything is safe."
This is only a dark joke:
if the quiz is only about protecting kokuto, Kagoshima City was not the front line.
Please protect the city too, of course.
8. Conclusion: follow kokuto and you end up far from the sugar aisle
The first question was easy.
"Is kokuto made from sugarcane?"
Yes.
But after looking into it, we found this:
- Kokuto is sugarcane juice boiled down with its molasses left in.
- Processed kokuto is a different product on the label.
- Ordinary white sugar is made from sugarcane or sugar beet.
- Sugarcane in Japan is grown mainly on the southwestern islands of Kagoshima and in Okinawa.
- It is normal not to see cane fields in Kagoshima City.
- The main cane areas in Kagoshima are Tanegashima and the Amami Islands.
- Okinawa has an even bigger share of kokuto.
- Imported kokuto-type sugar comes mostly from China and Thailand.
- So Kagoshima City is not the center of kokuto production.
It turned into a story about geography.
You look at one piece of kokuto in a shop, and you end up with island farming and world trade.
Sugar is a bigger world than it looks.
And the most important point for kokuto fans:
Kokuto really is sugarcane, today as always.
References (9)
- Consumer Affairs Agency, "Food Labeling Standards Q&A caa.go.jp
- MAFF, "Types of Sugar maff.go.jp
- MAFF, "How Sugar Is Made maff.go.jp
- ALIC, "Sugar Price Adjustment Operations Results (2024 Sugar Year) alic.go.jp
- MAFF, "Supply and Demand Outlook for Sugar and Isomerized Sugar, 2025 Sugar Year maff.go.jp
- ALIC, "Okinawa's Kokuto Industry Turns Pandemic Hardship into a New Market alic.go.jp
- Kyushu Regional Agricultural Administration Office, "Introducing Kagoshima Agriculture maff.go.jp
- ALIC, "Domestic Supply and Demand of Sugar alic.go.jp
- ALIC, "Trends in Japan's Main Import Sources alic.go.jp
