USA — American global food corporation Cargill has announced plans to invest US$48.25 million in expanding its capacity to produce value-added corn.
The money will be pumped into its plant west of Fort Dodge in Iowa where the production of value-added corn production for its food ingredient market happens.
According to the Iowa Economic Development Authority, the project also will include a new process building, tanks and transload capacity.
Although no new jobs are expected to be created as a result of the expansion, increased skills and wages for existing employees are expected as the employees learn new processes.
Site preparation is expected to begin in the first quarter of 2022 and be complete by the fall of 2024.
Cargill acquired the Fort Dodge plant from Tate & Lyle for US$57 million in 2011 and has in place a corn wet mill facility with capacity to grind approximately 150,000 bus of corn per day and produce 115 million gallons of ethanol per year.
Earlier, Cargill partnered with towage company KOTUG to deploy the KOTUG E-Pusher type M and four barges for zero-emission barging of cocoa beans between the Port of Amsterdam and Cargill’s cacao facilities in Zaandam.
The tug is equipped with swappable battery energy containers from Shift Clean Energy (Shift), which is part of the design of the vessel, and will utilise Shift’s battery swapping and charging stations.
According to Netherlands-based KOTUG, Cargill will be the first company with this fully electrified industrial setup for inland shipping.
Farmer Focus opens packaging plant
Meanwhile, Farmer Focus has announced the completion of a new, 78,000-square-foot packaging facility in Harrisonburg, Virginia, within a mile of its existing processing plant.
The additional capacity includes cold storage space, shipping dock locations and helps the company deal with growing consumer demand.
The poultry company said the packaging element of its business would expand its capacity by up to 100% over the next two years with the capacity to process 650,000 birds per week.
Farmer Focus expects to extend its poultry farm partners from 73 to 100 by the end of 2022 and further plans to double that number during 2023.
“With the expanded capacity of this plant comes the opportunity to partner with more farmers, the privilege to further partnerships with retailers, and the ability to reach more consumers,” said Corwin Heatwole, chief executive officer and founding farmer of Farmer Focus.
Farmer Focus recently said that 100 new jobs were related to the new facility opening and by the end of phase one of this project they expect to create 135 new jobs.
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