Commodities have gotten clobbered this year, and as Gary Shilling pointed out for Bloomberg News, “It seems the price of everything that is grown or pulled out of the ground — from oil and gas to sugar and copper — has declined 46 percent since early 2011, causing bankruptcies and industry consolidation.”

“The blame is largely heaped on the stronger dollar, global growth worries, plunging oil prices and weakening demand that have dampened the appeal for commodities,” Zacks.com explained.

“Economic slowdown in China is a major setback for the commodities market as the world's second-largest economy is also the world's largest buyer of raw materials,” it said.

But Zacks.com has found one sweet exception to the trend: sugar.

The price of sugar “has recovered as much as 30% since touching its seven-year nadir on August 24. Last week, sugar was the only commodity (except steel) that registered a double-digit rise of around 10%,” Zacks reported.

According to a note by Morgan Stanley, sugar consumption is expected to exceed demand for the first time in six years. The firm expects consumption to outdo demand by 3.7 million metric tons in the marketing year that began on October 1.

Meanwhile, the global sugar shortage will be bigger than previously forecast as the strongest El Nino in almost two decades hurts crops from India to China, according to Green Pool Commodity Specialists.

Supplies will fall short of demand by 5.6 million metric tons in the 2015-16 season, the Brisbane, Australia-based researcher said in a report, Bloomberg reported. The deficit, set to be the first in six years, compares with an August forecast for a shortfall of 4.61 million tons.

Contracts for delivery in the near term are more expensive than later-dated ones, a signal that supplies are tightening.

Production in India, where El Nino has reduced monsoon rains, will come to 26.5 million tons, down from a previous forecast of 27.3 million tons, according to Green Pool. Output in China will be 9.6 million tons, down from a previous estimate of 9.9 million tons. Dryness will also cut production in Central American nations and South Africa, it said.

Brazil, the world’s largest producer, will process 595 million tons of cane, 4.2 percent more than last season. Its sugar output will fall almost 4 percent to 30.8 million tons as millers direct more of the crop to make ethanol, the researcher said. Daily demand for hydrous ethanol, the kind used in flex-fuel cars, is now higher than the peak 2009 and sugar output in the European Union will decline "sharply," it said.

To cash in on the sugar craze, Zacks points out three ETFs “that investors should definitely consider in this otherwise bearish commodity market”:

• iPath Bloomberg Sugar SubTR ETN (SGG)
• Teucrium Sugar ETF (CANE)
• iPath Pure Beta Sugar ETN (SGAR)

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