McDonald Rivet Announces Neil Juhnke of Michigan Sugar Will Join Her at Trump’s Joint Address

WASHINGTON— Today, Congresswoman Kristen McDonald Rivet (MI-08), member of the U.S. House Committee on Agriculture, announced President and CEO of Michigan Sugar Neil Juhnke of Freeland will be her guest of honor for President Trump’s address to a joint session of Congress tomorrow, Tuesday, March 4, 2025. 

“I’m excited to welcome Neil Juhnke of Michigan Sugar to Washington for President Trump’s joint address. Family farmers bring thousands of good-paying jobs to the region, and help put food on the table across the country,” said Congresswoman McDonald Rivet. “This is a critical year for growers in Michigan. We need to pass a Farm Bill, and with so much at stake, we need to make sure Michigan farmers have a seat at the table.”

Michigan Sugar Company was founded in 1906 and is headquartered in Bay City. They have sugar beet processing facilities in Bay City, Caro, Croswell, and Sebewaing, Michigan. Its 865 grower-owners plant and harvest about 140,000 acres of sugar beets each year. Those beets are sliced at the factories and turned into about 1.3 billion pounds of sugar annually. Michigan Sugar Company is the third largest of eight sugar beet processing companies in the United States.

Michigan Sugar Company President and CEO Neil Juhnke joined Michigan Sugar in April 2023. Since joining Michigan Sugar, Neil has been focused on resetting the company’s foundation and putting it on a path for future success. That has included bringing several new faces to the company’s leadership team, raising the bar for excellence in factory operations, establishing new high standards for sugar beet harvest and permanent piling, and overseeing the completion of Michigan Sugar’s molasses desugarization facility that came online in May 2024 in Bay City.

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