Landus Coop Finishes $27M Soybean Processing Plant Expansion

One of North America’s largest grain storage companies, Landus Cooperative, recently completed a $27 million capacity expansion at its SoyPlus soybean processing plant in Ralston, IA, according to an announcement from the Ames, IA-based company Oct. 31.

Originally announced in Jun. 2015 as a response to increasing domestic and international demand, the company sought to boost the facility’s production capacity by 50% with the expansion. The Landus Cooperative site in Ralson has been operating at “maximum capacity” for over a year, the company said, prompting an investment to increase production capacity.

The expansion brought the facility’s yearly production capacity to 575,000 tons from about 20 million bushels of soybeans annually. Because of the increased capacity, the facility is now able to process an additional six million bushels of soybeans per year.

“We are proud to create greater demand for our area growers’ soybeans and, in turn, help meet the growing domestic and international demand for SoyPlusm” said Landus Cooperative Chief Executive Officer Mark Kucerak in a statement.

SoyPlus is a high bypass protein dairy feed ingredient used in dairy industry rations. Soybeans used by Landus Cooperative, a farmer-owned cooperative, are grown by over 7000 farmers in Iowa and sections of Minnesota.

“The cooperative estimates that nearly 50% of all soybeans purchased from farmers this year will be processed into SoyPlus at the Ralston plant,” the company said. 15% of the plant’s annual production is exported to foreign markets.

11 positions were added to the site’s payrolls as a result of the Ralston site expansion.

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