By 1968 the number of active sugar factories in Barbados was no more than fourteen, owned by entrepreneurs who were at the same time planters and owners or part-owners of the sugar factories. This was a different system from that of other parts of the West Indies and the Caribbean, where the sugar factories had control of the sugar field where sugarcane was harvested under the “administration” system. By the end of the 1970’s Barbados had nine operating central sugar mills, returns on capital invested in the sugar factories was low and exacerbated by their need to compete among themselves to assure adequate cane supplies.

While the sugar industries in Jamaica, Trinidad and British Guiana came under the control of the British companies, Tate & Lyle and Booker Tate, the Barbados sugar industry was able to remain in local hands during the prolonged depression in the industry caused by subsidized beet-sugar competition in the latter 19th century. The foreign ownership launched a wave of nationalizations that left only the Barbados sugar industry in the private hands of local investors by the mid-1970's. But this success in avoiding nationalization and maintaining a level of profitability, masked an imbalance between the industry’s factory capacity and the size of the sugar cane crop. Two factors affecting the industry were the change in the industry's leadership from factory-owners/planters to pure planters and the other factor was the decline in arable land due to changes in land use from agricultural to residential, creating a reduced amount of cane supply to match the sugar factories capacity.

In view of the existing situation, in 1969 a committee was established to examine possible options for an industry reorganization. On November 7, 1969 all fourteen factories then in operation considered a plan to raise US$25 million for the construction of three new factories and the closure of all the existing, older facilities. However, this was beyond the financial resources available and a program of selected closures of some factories and the refurbishment of others was elected instead. This program would take place under the auspices of a new company that owned and managed the island's entire factory sector, with US$12.5 million in authorized capital. Shares were allocated 15% to individual sugarcane growers, 20% to plantation owners that did not have shares in existing factories and the remaining 65% to the existing owners of the island’s fifteen dark crystal factories and two molasses factories. The value of the existing factories was converted into loan capital in the new company, to be repaid over a number of years. Thus the capital of the new factory company was comprised of equity put in by growers, on the basis of arable acreage under cane, and loans owed by the new company to the stockholders of the individual factory companies that had existed previously.

Within a decade, a period of consolidation followed that saw the ten factories that survived the reorganization in 1969 reduced to six, including one new construction, the Portvale Sugar Factory built in 1980 and in operation since 1982 located in Blowers, St. James. However, by 1986 the industry was bankrupt with only two sugar factories in operation; Portvale Sugar Mill and Andrew’s Sugar Mill in St. Joseph Parrish, both were owned by the Barbados Agricultural Management Co. Ltd. Sugar production had seen a reduction from 204,000 tons in the peak year of 1957 to a mere 54,000 tons in 1992. That year the Barbados Sugar Industry Ltd contracted with Booker Tate to undertake a strategic review of the sugar industry. In 1993 Booker Tate was again contracted this time to provide management services for Barbados Agricultural Management Co. Ltd. plantations and two factories. In 200 Booker Tate’s responsibilities changed from management services to technical services, contracted that was terminated in June 2004.

Andrew’s Sugar Mill ceased to operate after the 2013 milling season, leaving Portvale as the island's only operating sugar factory as of 2026. Portvale is still owned by the Barbados Agricultural Management Co. Ltd., established in 1933 as a wholly owned subsidiary of the Barbados Agricultural Credit Trust Ltd. which in turn is owned by the Government of Barbados.  The factory operations are currently been carried out by the Barbados Energy and Sugar Company Inc. and the farm operations by the Agricultural Business Co. Ltd. For the 2024 grinding season, due to losses in recent years, the government owned Barbados Agricultural Management Co. divested its farms and sugar factory to the cooperative movement, thereby privatizing the sugar industry in Barbados. That year Barbados’s Minister of Agriculture and Food Security Indar Weir announced that more than 11,000 workers at the two state-owned sugar companies will become owners of 20% of the stock as the companies transition to private ownership.

“My view,” Weir said, “is that when the full transition is completed, for the first time in our entire existence workers in the sugar industry are becoming owners. A sugar industry with workers becoming owners has to be the real deal…This to my mind represents the greatest piece of enfranchisement to ever take place in this hemisphere.”

The ownership stake for workers is the first step in an envisioned gradual process of privatization, details of which are to be determined stated the press release.

Portvale Sugar Mill is the site of the Sir Frank Hutson Sugar Museum, which houses a collection of old machinery in a converted boiling house and showcases how sugar was produced in the 18th and 19th Centuries. Sugar production remains part of Barbados' heritage and economy, though on a smaller scale, with a focus on producing molasses for the island's renowned rum industry.