The construction of this facility for Fries Farms consisted of 2 projects over 15 years. The first project was the design and construction of the high-speed rail receiving, grain/soy meal storage, and grain/soy meal loadout systems. This project was completed in 2001. The storage silos are made up of 420,000 bushels of whole corn storage in five silos and two interstice bins and one 1,700-ton soy meal silo with Laidig unloader. The receiving capacity consists of 32,000-bushel-per-hour rail receiving and 10,000-bushel-per-hour soft stock receiving.
The second project, completed in 2016, consisted of the feed mill and long-term grain storage silo. The feed mill systems include a 140-ton-per-hour grinding system; 23 ingredient bins with 3,150 tons of storage; a 12-ton batching and mixing system, including two 12-bin micro systems; and liquid meters to the mixer. The pellet mills are housed in a pelleting tower directly adjacent to the main mill tower, primarily to provide adequate operational and maintenance room for the pelleting system equipment. The fats coating utilizes a continuous-flow-style coating system with guided radar continuous level indication in the surge hopper, a dry product mass flow meter (CentriFlow meters), fat mass flow meter (MicroMotion), and VFD pump. Screw conveyors with multiple discharges and distributors are used for pellet distribution. Loadout utilizes a double driveway, with each having a 9-ton weigh lorry scale. The total finished feed capacity is approximately 3,300 tons in 22 bins.
Additional features to the feed mill include 850,000 bushels of additional grain storage in one 100-foot-diameter concrete silo, complete with 1/10th cfm/bushel aeration system, grain temperature detection cables, and stand-alone truck grain receiving system at 16,000 bushels per hour. A 4,000-bushel-per-hour grain dryer system completes grain operations.
The tank farm consists of four 20,000-gallon cone hoppered fat tanks, one 20,000-gallon fuel oil tank, and five poly tanks of various size and capacity. Two 40 hp air compressors and two 500 hp gas/oil-fired boilers complete the utility interface. One 500-pound manlift is used to provide vertical access from grade level to roof level. All ancillary structures consist of tilt-up concrete structures.