Gur (jaggery) is a natural product of sugarcane. It is in more unrefined form than sugar. It is a brown raw mass of sucrose which gets it color because of other elements found in concentration such as wood ash and bagasse.
Jaggery or "Gur" or whole sugar is a pure, wholesome, traditional, unrefined, whole sugar. It contains the natural goodness of minerals and vitamins inherently present in sugarcane juice & this crowns it as one of the most wholesome and healthy sugars in the world.
Gur plants are located in rural areas of Sugarcane leading zones of Uttar Pradesh and Tamilnadu mainly. It is an unorganized industry. This is a second major rural industry in north U.P. region and has good employment opportunities also. Gur making process is simple and cheep as compared to sugar.
The annual market demand for non refined sugar i.e. Gur is about 5Lakh MT/ year in India. The demand for this product is about 2 Lakh MT each at two major market cities of Mumbai and Ahmedabad. About 80% of demand at Mumbai is net from three wholesale markets at Pune, Sangali and Kolhapur which receive the product from adjoining villages in Maharashtra, North Karnataka. This demand is ever increasing in last 5 years.