Dist. said there is no difference between pure cane & beet sugar. I guess all of us cake decorating folks who only use pure cane sugar are crazy!
I ask is your sugar beet or cane.
The girl said well it could be either or depending on who the supplier is, but it makes no difference in your cooking.
She was a very nice girl so I did tell her kindly that it does make a difference, but thank you for all your info.
What do you think?

An uninformed sales person. There are certainly many uses where it wouldn't make much difference, but in most cake decorating it makes a huge difference.

What a shame that companies will spend a fortune on decorating the upper management's offices, but they won't spend any money on training their front line employees who are actually dealing with the customer! (I see this ALL the time!)

It was my Sysco rep who educated me on the difference between beet and cane sugars. I will attest that this is one company who makes sure their sales reps are very informed on their products.

I do a lot of pulled and blown sugar work and you need to use only cane sugar because beet has too many impurities in it. I think candy makers would probably agree too.

I used beet sugar ONCE for a batch of buttercream. It came out with an odd consistency, a greyish color, and tasted awful. It's the only batch I've ever just chucked & started over. I use pure cane only and won't buy anything that doesn't state "pure cane" on it.

I was told that all US confectioner's sugars contains a small percentage of cornstarch (<3%) to prevent clumping but that sometimes beet sugars need more because they tend to naturally clump more than cane. No matter, because after my experience, I'm a cane sugar snob (css)!

Rae

You must have some really weird beet sugar in the States we mainly get beet sugar here (cane is 4 times the price because it is imported), and I assure you, my sugar work, candies, cakes and frostings, are just fine