Facility Feature
Ceres Solutions LLP Mill in Michigan Offers Biosecure Feed Products

Michigan Regional Manager Martin Hall is pleased with the relatively remote location for Ceres Solutions LLP’s new feed mill in White Cloud, MI (231-924-3851), near the edge of the Manistee National Forest north of Grand Rapids, MI.

To be sure, the $13 million mill with potential capacity of 250,000 tpy of mixed species feed does have good transportation connections just off State Highway 37 and along a spur of the Genesee & Wyoming short-line railroad with connections to the CSX.

However, says Hall, the heavily wooded site does offer some isolation, which helps the plant to maintain strict Danish-style biosecurity protocols.

“That’s a major selling point for us,” explains Hall, who has been with Ceres Solutions for five years after serving as a multistate regional manager for Land O’Lakes. “We are able to offer exceptionally clean feeds for livestock producers or integrators.”

The new mill is intended as a replacement for a mill the company operated in nearby Fremont, MI. “The original structure at Fremont is more than 100 years old,” Hall says. “We’re landlocked for expansion there by a highway and railroad, and we’re maxed out on capacity. We did some research into the Michigan livestock industry and decided that if we’re committed to the feed business, a new mill was the way to go.”

Ceres Solutions took bids from several construction firms and awarded the contract to Agra Industries Inc., Merrill, WI (800-842-8033). Hall says Agra had the most competitive bid and a solid track record in the feed industry.

Construction began in December 2016, and the mill began producing feed in April 2018.

New all-steel mill from Agra

Agra constructed an all-steel mill with an 150-foot-tall milling tower and 10,000-sq.-ft. warehouse. The mill tower includes 37 Agra ingredient bins holding 2,000 tons of ingredients in total and 24 loadout bins holding 576 tons of finished feed.

The structures also include a 90,000-bushel Brock corrugated steel tank for corn receiving at 7,500 bph with an Agra leg. That represents about an eight-day supply for the mill. Corn is prepared for the mix on an RMS triple-stack roller mill at 32 tph.

All milling operations are under the control of a Repete automation system. That includes production of three types of feed products on lines that Ceres Solutions keeps completely separate for biosecurity purposes: a pelleted feed line using a 6-ton Scott double-ribbon mixer; a texturized feed line with a 2-ton Scott mixer; and a customized premix line with a 1-ton Scott mixer. In addition to ingredients from the overhead bins, the system also utilizes a 6-tote ingredient system, a 20-bin Agra microingredient systems, and an automated Repete system for hand-adds (see photo above left).

While a small percentage of the mash feed coming off the 6-ton mixer is bagged on a Hamer-Fischbein bagging line, most goes to a 30-tph CPM pellet mill for pelleting. The mill uses steam produced by a 100-hp Johnston boiler through a CPM steam conditioner. An Apec fat coater supplies fat for the pelleting process.

Pellets are processed further in a CPM counterflow cooler, Rotex screener, and a CPM crumbler for certain products such as baby pig feeds.

Textured feeds for dairy calves coming off the 2-ton mixer are run through an EBM Manufacturing rotary screener before bagging or bulk loadout.

Agra designed and manufactured an automated loadout system complete with seven Agra rack-and-pinion motorized gates that are controlled by position switches. A standalone HMI panel and camera system allows the operator to fully control each batch of feed as it leaves the feed mill. Ceres Solutions operates a five-truck fleet out of White Cloud.

Mill provides high level of biosecurity

Hall says he believes that the mill at White Cloud is one of the first multi-species mills in the United States to implement such a high degree of biosecurity measures. Among its components:

• Visitors to the plant are asked to step on a pad soaked in disinfectant prior to entering the building.
• Truck drivers are required to run their vehicles through a sprayed foam disinfection system before approaching the plant for ingredient deliveries or entering the loadout bay. Liquid ingredients are outside shoes in the locker room, walk through disinfectant solution, and put on clean shoes on the other side. Those with a higher degree on contact are required to shower before entering the mill and then put on clean uniforms.
• Hand-adds often are the most likely place for human error to creep into feed formulation. Ceres Solutions utilizes an automated hand-add scale with bar code readers to ensure the right ingredients are being added for the specific formula.

More new construction. Hall reports that another new Ceres Solutions mill is nearing completion in Edgerton, IN, northeast of Fort Wayne. Production is expected to begin after Jan. 1, 2019. Agra Industries is the design-build contractor on that project, as well.