this is the industry where the notion "sabotage" was born. When the laborers in the factories wanted to protest against their working load they threw a sabot (wooden shoe) in the machine.

This story about the closure of the factory and its impact to the town is heartbreaking.

Beets figure prominently in the novel Jitterbug Perfume (1984) by Tom Robbins. (“Slavic peoples get their physical characteristics from potatoes, their smoldering inquietude from radishes, their seriousness from beets.”) I grew up within smelling distance of a sugar beet processing plant in Winnipeg, Manitoba, and the odor, while not unpleasant, is certainly distinctive.