USA – CHS Inc., the American agricultural company is in the process of its grain elevator facility located in Akron, Ohio with a goal to improve speed and efficiency during harvesting.
CHS said the move would benefit area producers by helping them get back to the fields faster.
According to an Akron News Reporter, the company is increasing the speed of the existing leg and adding another leg inside the elevator to handle more grain faster.
CHS is also replacing the distributor and tubing in the top of the elevator and the upgrades are expected to enable the elevator to operate four times faster.
The facility will have both inbound and outbound scales at the facility, removing the traffic bottlenecks that have occurred in the past, and improving the flow of trucks in and out of the elevator for quicker returns to the field.
CHS is also installing an RFID card system which will allow the driver to scan a card with grain account information, without necessarily getting out of the truck.
The information will automatically be uploaded into the CHS grain-tracking system.
In the third quarter of its 2018 fiscal year, CHS reported net income of US$229.3 million compared to a net loss of US$45.2 million for the same period a year earlier.
This included pre-tax income of US$289.4 million and US$9.0 billion in consolidated revenues, up from US$8.6 billion for the third quarter of fiscal 2017.
The period was characterized by higher operating margins in the company’s Ag and Energy segments compared to prior years, primarily driven by higher margins in feed and farm supplies, crop nutrients, processing and food ingredients and refined fuels.
The firm owns and operates various food processing and wholesale, farm supply, Cenex brand fuel, financial services and retail businesses, and is a co-owner of Ventura Foods, a vegetable oil processor.
