By: Deborah Johnson Wood
Soybean producers across central Lower Michigan are ready to cash in on their first promising deal. With just one order for soy flour, Soy Beginnings, a Thumb-area certified organic and non-GMO soybean refinery and cooperative, will double its gross profits to $3,600,000 this year.
That order is from Soy Ultima, a Grand Rapids-based food and technology company that recently graduated from the West Michigan Science and Technology Initiative's business incubator. Their first product, ProTato, a high-protein blend of soybean flour and potato flakes, is expected to make $7 million in its first year on the market in a nutritious snack food, Xtreme O's.
Soy Beginnings produces dry soy meal for cow feed, getting 12 to 13 cents a pound. Soy flour, which they also produce, is worth about 30 cents a pound. Last year they sold 6.5 million pounds of soy flour. But with Soy Ultima's order, they'll produce a million pounds a month.
"We've just been kind of trudging along until Soy Ultima came along with what we call the 'hitting the jackpot' deal," said John Knoerr, chairman of the board for Soy Beginnings. "They're starting to take a quantity of soy flour that's producing an income for us greater than we can make at the commercial elevators."
The cooperative is a five percent owner of Soy Ultima, has a membership of 175 farmers, and produces about 20,000 acres of several varieties of high protein, food grade, organic soybeans.
Knoerr expects the cooperative to hire five new workers to run the flourmill. He said the increased soybean production might eventually create more jobs on farms, as well.
Source: John Knoerr, Soy Beginnings
www.thumboilseed.com
www.soyultima.com
Deborah Johnson Wood is the Development News Editor for Rapid Growth. She can be reached at [email protected].
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