BAINBRIDGE, Pa. — Pa. Gov. Tom Wolf and Agriculture Secretary Russell Redding joined Perdue Farms Chairman Jim Perdue and other company and local officials Sept. 25 to celebrate the opening of Pennsylvania’s first large-scale, commercial soybean processing plant.
The Lancaster County plant will create 35 local jobs and hundreds more in the state’s supply and distribution chain for agricultural products.
The plant also promises to more than double the state’s soybean processing capacity, providing better prices and increased demand for area soybean farmers’ crops.
The $60 million facility has the capacity to process 17.5 million bushels of soybeans per year, producing soybean meal and oil that is then sold as animal feed ingredients and as inputs for food processors, among other uses.
“This plant is a game changer for farmers in Pennsylvania, opening new lanes of supply, new markets, and new opportunities in the commonwealth’s agriculture economy,” Wolf said.
Most soybean producers previously had to transport their crops out of state for processing, then back to the state for sale.
$8.8 million grant
Purdue Agribusiness received an $8.75 million Redevelopment Assistance Capital Program grant from the commonwealth, which spurred an investment of more than six times that amount.
Location
The new plant is located within 50 miles of seven of the top 10 soybean-producing counties in the state.
Pennsylvania farmers produced 29.6 million bushels of soybeans in 2014 and consumed 44 million bushels of soybean meal.
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