Weather Pushes Up Start of Crushing Facility

FAIRMONT, MN-An unseasonably warm fall has prompted Harvest States to advance the construction schedule for its new $60-million soybean crushing facility being built here. Site preparation work has begun on the new facility, which has an estimated 110,000-bushel daily production.

Immediate work includes installation of the plant entrance road and preparing the ground for building construction.

“Being able to ready the ground this fall allows us to push our entire construction schedule ahead,” says Scott Teters, vice president of facilities for HarvestStates Oilseed Processing & Refining. “Now we’ll target opening the new plant well before harvest 2003.”

Harvest States says it has hired Todd & Sargent, headquartered out of Ames, IA, as design/build, general contractor for the project. Additional primary subcontractors under Todd & Sargent include Interstates Electric & Engineering of Sioux Center, IA and M&W Contractors of East Peoria, IL. Crown Iron Works of Roseville, MN, and Roskamp Champion of Waterloo, IA, have been selected as major suppliers of processing equipment for the new Harvest States soybean crushing plant.

The facility is the second soybean processing plant for Harvest States, the grains and foods division of CHS Cooperatives. Although company officials did not have precise dimensions for the new facility, they say it will handle 110,000 bushels of soybeans per day and be staffed by 38 full-time employees.

A formal groundbreaking on the facility, located on a 26-acre site at County Highway 26 and County Highway 29, is scheduled for April 2002.