Beet sugar is sucrose extracted from the root of the sugar beet plant (Beta vulgaris), rather than from sugarcane; chemically it is the same glucose-fructose disaccharide found in cane sugar.
German chemist Andreas Sigismund Marggraf first identified sucrose in beet roots in 1747, and his student Franz Karl Achard opened the first commercial beet sugar factory in Cunern, Silesia (in present-day Poland), in 1801. Production expanded rapidly across Europe over the following century, helped along by Napoleon's Continental System, which cut off access to colonial cane sugar.
Today major producers include the United States, the European Union, and Russia. Beet sugar's flavor is generally described as milder and less caramel-like than cane sugar, which makes it a common choice for delicate pastries and confections where other flavors should lead.