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Beck’s unveils soybean tower
Beck’s has unveiled a 10-story soybean tower that can process three million bushels a year.
Tom Hooper, director of business, says it will take 60,000 soybean production acres to run at full capacity, which is about 150 semi-trailer loads of soybeans each week.
“It has the capacity to process 24,000 units of soybeans everyday with a capacity closer to 30,000 when it’s fine-tuned,” he says. “It has cutting-edge technology when it comes to treating equipment, quality production packaging with robotic automation, and a lot of really cool things.”
He tells Brownfield the new facility will benefit growers.
“We’re going to be able to bring farmers in on tours,’ he says. “There is a glass bottom observation deck where growers can see soybeans being processed, put in a bag, packaged, and see the end result of their product,” he says Part of the tower will be a germination lab where we’ll do quality testing and again be able to demonstrate and show growers ‘here’s how we test your product and prove its viability to help give you confidence and trust before you put the crop in the soil.’”
Indiana Governor Eric Holcomb says “to have a company like this in the state of Indiana that’s serving 14 different states, truly a national market, and is the largest family owned retail seed company—we’re proud.”
The East Soybean Tower, which is part of a $60 million project to enhance Beck’s processing and distribution, is one of the largest processing towers in the world. The expansion doubles Beck’s processing capacity from three million to six million bushels at the Atlanta, Indiana facility.
The tower will be able to process soybean and wheat and allows for a 1.3 million unit increase in corn processing capacity.
