Steen's Syrup

In 1910, Charley Steen's sugarcane crop got hit by an early freeze. Facing a total loss, he rigged up a small mill and boiled the frozen cane down into barrels of syrup. His neighbors started bringing their cane to his mill too, and a business was born — not from a business plan, but from a freeze and a refusal to waste good sugar.

By 1930, Charley and his wife Elizabeth had built a larger mill in the heart of Abbeville, Louisiana, on the banks of Bayou Vermilion. The signature yellow can of Steen's Pure Cane Syrup became a kitchen staple across South Louisiana by the 1950s. It's still there today.

What makes Steen's remarkable is what they haven't done. They haven't sold. They haven't reformulated. They haven't moved production offshore or switched to high-fructose corn syrup. C.S. Steen's Syrup Mill is now led by Jimmie and Carole Steen, a brother-and-sister team and the fourth generation of the family. The process is still open-kettle — raw sugarcane juice cooked down in open kettles until it reaches the right consistency. Steen's is the last remaining open-kettle cane syrup producer in the United States. Every other producer either closed or switched to cheaper methods decades ago.

The product itself is pure cane syrup. One ingredient. No corn syrup blends, no artificial flavoring, no preservatives. Pour it on biscuits, stir it into pecan pie, use it as a base for marinades and glazes. In Cajun and Creole cooking, cane syrup is treated less like a condiment and more like a foundational ingredient — the way good olive oil functions in Italian cooking.

Steen's also produces cane vinegar, molasses, and a small line of flavored syrups, but the pure cane syrup built the company and still defines it. The mill in Abbeville runs the same harvest-season schedule it always has, grinding fresh Louisiana sugarcane between October and December.

When a 115-year-old family business is still making one product the same way, using the same equipment, in the same town — that tells you something about both the family and the product.

Products

• Pure Cane Syrup (cans and bottles, multiple sizes)
• Cane Vinegar
• Molasses
• Flavored syrups
• Gift sets

Why We List Them

• Fourth-generation Steen family ownership since 1910
• Last remaining open-kettle cane syrup producer in the United States
• Single-ingredient product — pure cane syrup, no corn syrup blends or preservatives
• Same Abbeville, Louisiana mill and process for 115 years
• No outside investors, no corporate acquisition, no reformulation