In 1959, Alfonso "Alfy" Fanjul Jr. sat in his family's Havana office with a yellow pad while armed representatives of Cuba's new government explained that its properties would be taken. Fanjul, the Cuban-born executive who helped rebuild that business into a multinational sugar enterprise, died in Palm Beach on August 3, 2026, at 89, as CiberCuba reported.

The encounter in Havana arrived just after Fanjul had completed a bachelor of science degree in management at Fordham University in 1959. Educated by the De La Salle Brothers in Cuba before enrolling at Fordham, he had expected to return to an established family concern. Instead, he and his relatives faced the task of beginning again in the United States. In a later campus talk, he credited his Fordham education with preparing him for that abrupt change, according to Fordham University.

The restart took physical form near Lake Okeechobee. In 1960, the Fanjul family and its partners acquired 4,000 acres in Pahokee and brought parts from three defunct Louisiana sugar mills to Florida by barge. Reassembled on the southern shore of the lake, the equipment became the Osceola Sugar Mill. Fanjul worked with his father on the new operation, helping build the mill and prepare the land as the family established sugar production in Florida.

That early mill became the foundation for decades of expansion shared with his brother J. Pepe Fanjul and other members of the family. The company added farmland and refining capacity, introduced the Florida Crystals brand to sell directly to consumers, and moved into large-scale refining. A 1998 acquisition of a Yonkers, New York, refinery laid the groundwork for American Sugar Refining.

The familiar names on grocery shelves showed how far that rebuilding effort traveled. American Sugar Refining acquired Domino Sugar and three cane refineries in 2001, followed by C&H Sugar in 2005. Redpath Sugar and operations in Mexico joined the group in 2007, while the purchase of Tate & Lyle Sugars in 2010 extended the enterprise further into Europe. ASR Group's corporate history describes the resulting family of companies as a network spanning some of the best-known cane-sugar brands in North America and Europe.

Fanjul's work also moved beyond conventional sugar production. Florida Crystals developed rice and vegetable operations, a biomass energy facility tied to its milling complex, and organic sugarcane farming. In 2012, it founded FCI Residential Corporation, bringing the family's long experience with land into residential development. By 2026, Florida Crystals identified Fanjul and his brother as co-chief executives and described ASR Group as the world's largest refiner and marketer of cane sugar.

His public service centered on institutions in the communities where the family operated. Fordham credited him as a co-founder of Mission International Rescue Charities in the Dominican Republic, a national trustee of the University of Miami and a member of the Florida Council of 100. In 2010, his alma mater awarded him an honorary doctorate of humane letters, recognizing both his business career and charitable commitments.

What persists from Fanjul's long career is concrete: the Osceola mill rebuilt from transported machinery, Florida farms that grew from the first Pahokee acreage, the refining network behind Domino, C&H and other brands, and the educational and charitable institutions he supported. Together they trace the course of a life redirected by exile and devoted for more than six decades to rebuilding, expanding and passing a family enterprise forward.