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First new soy plant in Michigan in two decades readies for harvest

Michigan’s second soybean processing plant is prepping for its very first harvest season.

Zeeland Farm Services’ Brian Meeuwsen has been overseeing the construction of the facility and tells Brownfield the grain elevator has been taking small deliveries to test equipment and after Labor Day will do the same for the grain drier.

“We plan on filling the grain elevator either with contracted bushels that we already have bought or spot bushels through harvest in anticipation of the plant being ready to start production around November 1st.”     

The grain elevator can store about four million bushels of soybeans and once operational, the plant will process 50 to 60,000 bushels per day.  Meeuwsen says once fully up and running, the plant can process more than 100,000 bushels per day making it the largest in the state.

“The plant in Zealand processes 10 to 11 million bushels of soybeans per year, and the plant in Ithaca will be capable of processing up to just over 40 million bushels.”      

Later plans Meeuwsen says include converting the ZFS plant in Zealand to a specialty soybean processing plant.