A purification method employs nanofiltration of an aqueous solution containing one or several sugars, multivalent cations, monovalent metal cations, monovalent anions and multivalent inorganic anions and/or organic acid anions. The method includes replacement of at least a part of said multivalent cations and/or said multivalent inorganic anions and organic acid anions respectively by monovalent metal cations and/or monovalent anions to produce a solution. Nanofiltration of the solution is carried out to obtain a retentate, and at least part of the retentate is subject to crystallization.