Ribbon cutting held at Coshocton Soy Processing
Coshocton Soy Processing held a ribbon cutting to open its new soybean processing facility on Browns Lane in Coshocton on Thursday morning, Aug. 15 with employees and vendors on hand to celebrate. A ground-breaking was held on Jan. 2 with local and regional contractors working long hours to complete the facility in time for the fall harvest season. Pictured from left are; Jason Buseman, Senior Process Engineer, Insta-Pro; Jamie McCahill, owner, Schilling Electric; Ron Warnock, operations manager, Coshocton Soy Processing; Rhoda Crown, CEO, Coshocton Soy Processing; Larry Endsley, chairman of the board, Coshocton Grain Co.; and Dennis Wagenblast, manager, Knox. Co., Custom Agri-Systems. Mark Fortune | Beacon
COSHOCTON – The Coshocton Grain Company’s new facility, Coshocton Soy Processing ExPress Meal & Oil, is ready for business.
“We are very excited for this,” said Larry Endsley, chairman of the grain company’s board. “This is a lifesaver for Coshocton Grain with the changes that have occurred in the grain industry. We are really pleased that we came up with this idea a year ago and seven months later we are ready to open the doors.”
A ribbon cutting for the soy bean processing plant was held on Aug. 15.
According to Rhoda Crown, CEO, they will need more than three million bushels of soybeans, which they plan on getting from farmers in Coshocton and seven surrounding counties. She added that at capacity they will produce approximately 81,000 tons of soybean meal and 12,600 tons of soybean oil annually.
The meal, which is a feed additive for dairy cattle, swine, and poultry, will be sold at the plant and in a 75 mile radius. The oil will be sent to a biofuel refinery in Erie, Pa.
“We use a chemical free process that is very important to consumers,” Crown said. “More and more people are choosing milk, meat and eggs that they know came from animals that are fed chemical free soybean meal.”
So far four operators and one safety director have been hired and Crown said they expect to hire four to five more people.
The plant was designed by Operations Manager Ron Warnock who made sure they could easily add on if necessary.
“Production will say when an expansion would be necessary,” he said.
Equipment for the new facility came from Insta-Pro.
“We are happy to play a small part in their success here,” said Jason Buseman, who is a process engineer with Insta-Pro. “We are a feed and nutrition company first. Our goal is for the best end product for consumers.”
The company had people on hand to help train everyone on the new equipment they will be using.
“A lot of the equipment, actually most of it is American made and we were sent people to help us learn how to use it,” said Warnock. “They are helping us make sure we start out on the best foot we possibly can and produce the best possible product. We could have bought cheaper, but we wouldn’t have bought better.”
As many local and area contractors as possible also were used. Electrical work was done by Jamie McCahill’s Schilling Electric located in New Philadelphia. He was impressed with how well everyone worked together and how fast the project moved.
“This was a year and a half project that was done in seven months,” McCahill said.
Endsley praised Crown and Warnock on keeping the project moving.
“They did a fantastic job,” Endsley said. “We are really pleased with how fast it went.”
The new facility is a nine to 10 million dollar investment that was funded through Farm Credit Illinois and a loan from the United States Department of Agriculture.
Category: Business
