Jaggery Powder

Jaggery powder is non-centrifugal cane sugar. Sugarcane juice is clarified and boiled down in open pans until it sets, then the solid is dried and milled to a free-flowing powder. Because the syrup is never spun in a centrifuge, the molasses fraction stays in the product — which is why the powder runs golden brown to dark brown rather than white, and why it keeps the caramel character that centrifugal refining strips out. The same material is called gur across northern India, panela in Latin America, muscovado in European kitchens and kokuto in Japan. Composition moves with cane variety, soil, season and how far the boiling is taken. Published figures put jaggery at up to 50% sucrose, up to 20% invert sugars and up to 20% moisture, with the balance as other insoluble matter; powdered grades are dried well below that moisture ceiling, and the actual split is fixed lot by lot on the certificate of analysis. The retained molasses fraction is what carries the mineral content — palm-syrup jaggery has been reported at 11.4 mg iron, 1050 mg potassium and 2.5 mg zinc per 100 g, and cane material varies around its own range. A buyer printing a mineral figure on a pack should specify it in the contract and have it confirmed per lot rather than working from a generic table. Commercially the material is straightforward. It is vegan and plant-origin, and free of milk, egg, soy, fish, crustacean, gluten and nut at source. Unlike white refined sugar it is never decolourised over bone char, which matters to vegan-certified brands. Sulphur-free and non-chemical clarified grades are available where the destination market limits residual SO2. The powder is hygroscopic and will cake once the moisture barrier is broken, so it ships in lined sacks and should be kept sealed. In formulation it contributes sweetness, colour and a caramel-molasses note, and behaves as a binder in bar and ball applications.