When sugar is produced from cane or beet, a considerable amount of sugar in the plant remains in a by-product, molasses, even if the normal extraction and crystallization are carried out properly. The purpose of the process described here is to recover the bulk of the sugar by means of the chromatographic separation technology. Pretreatment consists of clarification and, if necessary, deliming. The pretreated molasses is passed through a separation column and eluated from the adsorbent by water. Fractionation of molasses into sugar and non-sugar components takes place in the column. The recovered sugar fraction is either crystallized or further purified into liquid sugar. The non-sugar fraction can be utilized as cattle feed for fertilizer.