Sugar Collection

History of UKSC

In 1983  the National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children issued a range of sugar packets to raise awareness and funds for their work.  The manufacturers of the product, Single Service, received so many enquiries that they organised a meeting at their factory.  Fourteen people attended and of these eleven became the first members of The UK Sucrologists Club (UKSC).

The club has only a small membership and many of these are from other countries.

Collecting UK packets

The range of packets available in the UK is smaller than in some other countries.  There also seem to be fewer sets produced today than there were a few years ago.  Some of the companies that used to produce a lot of packets now only produce a few.

There are lots of cafes and coffee bars in most towns but they are often part of national or international chains or they just use ‘generic’ packets such as ‘Lichfields’, ‘Tate & Lyle’ of ‘Fairtrade’.  There are still many typically English tea rooms, particularly in small towns and large villages, but they are more likely to have loose sugar in a bowl than packets.  Another source of named packets are hotels and companies but these are more difficult for collectors to find.

Our impression is that there are a few keen collectors in the UK who keep the Club going and some of whom correspond and exchange packets with others on a regular basis.  Others members are content to collect the few packets which they, or their friends, come across.

As with other collecting hobbies many focus on particular subjects such as transport or signs of the zodiac, whilst others collect those by particular companies such as McDonalds or Burger King.

The main UK manufacturers are Single Source (formerly Single Service) and Nutshell packaging.  Tate & Lyle in the UK produce only a very limited range of packets today.

Not everyone collects sweetener packets but Splenda and Sweet ‘N Low have several sets each in the UK in recent years.

Activities of UKSC

The Club has a quarterly newsletter.  The first two issues were produced by Single Service and then members took over the production.  To keep costs down we only print the newsletter in black and white but a full colour version can be downloaded from the website by members.  The newsletter has become known as “Sweet Thoughts” although this was originally the title of the introductory remarks by one of the club’s founders.

The Club organises at least one exchange meeting each year.  This has tended to be either on the south coast (Chichester or Dover) or in the south midlands (Milton Keynes).

Robin Williams acts as the Packet Caretaker and he has a stock of packets which have been given to the Club.  Robin brings these to the exchange meetings and members can contact him with particular requests.  He has also sent around boxes of packets (which he call a “Round Robin”) for people to take whatever they wish, but only a few have used this service.

Pam Miller is one of the three remaining founder members and is, in effect, the organiser of the club.  She is the chief source of information regarding UK packets and has the final say on whether a packet is a “new find”.

We also keep in touch with the  main manufacturers of packets in the UK but they are not very good at sending us information.

 

If you are not a member, then why not join us.

 

The UKSC Website

The Club’s website is one of the main means by which we attract new members.  The site has a public area and a members’ area.

The public area includes the following:

• Details of the club, including how to join - subscriptions can be paid online.
• General information and articles about collecting.
• A list of articles from past issues of Sweet Thoughts.
• Details of collectors’ meetings in the UK and elsewhere - we advertise any we are notified of.
• An RSS weblog which just gives details of updates.

The domain name is www.uksucrologistsclub.org.uk but you can also use the much simpler www.sugarpackets.org.uk
We also have a members’ area which is much more extensive but is password protected.  The reason to restrict access is to encourage members so that the club can continue but we are not sure that this is the best approach.  The membership fee is quite low but we are monitoring the situation.

The members’ area contains:

• Newsletter - medium resolution of Issue 51 onwards.  This is suitable for printing in colour on a home printer.  Issues are roughly 5-6MB each.
• Newsletter - low resolution of Issue 51 onwards.  These can be viewed on line but the quality is poor for printing.  Issues are roughly 1-2MB each.
• The SUGARCAT database containing details and pictures of nearly 5,000 UK packets which can be searched using various criteria.  Roughly 3,000 of these are from sets.  The database is being expanded but only slowly.
• The New Finds database consisting of the details of over 1,000 packets which have featured in “Sweet Thoughts”.  Either a link to the SUGARCAT entry or a scan from the newsletter is included.
• Details of UK sets.  This information can be viewed in various ways.  There are over 300 sets listed and a complete list with an example of most of them can be seen, but the web page takes some time to load.
• For many sets there is a low resolution PDF which can be downloaded which shows the packets on the database.  These follow a standard format.  These files can be printed but they are not ideal.
• Where we have the full set on SUGARCAT a higher resolution PDF is included.  These are again suitable for printing and one day we would like this to build into a complete catalogue of UK sets.  However, with 300 sets the catalogue would be 600+ pages long and expensive to print out.
• The “other packets” database shows some  non-UK packets some of which have featured in recent additions of Sweet Thoughts.  Minimal detail is given for these packets, but pictures are included.
• Scans of the New Finds pages (b/w) from Issues 1-50 of Sweet Thoughts (more recent pages are within the newsletter PDFs).

If you have any UK packets that do not feature in SUGARCAT then we would like to hear about them, especially if they are part of a set.  In recent months I have found pictures on other websites of UK sets that are not in our list.
If you can send us a scan of the packets then we can add them to the database (front and back, at 300dpi as jpg format).

I am working on a complete sets list showing an example packet from every set. This would be available for members to download for free or a printed version would be available to buy.  However, at present I have too many gaps in the list to make this worthwhile printing.

David Phillips, Newsletter Editor and Webmaster.
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