Nov. 8—Bunge is expanding its Decatur plant again with a $19.2 million project that increases its receiving capacity for soybeans and should reduce the number of trucks backed up on Church Street Northeast during harvest season, officials said Thursday.
Facilities Manager Rusty Roberts told the Decatur Industrial Development Board that the planned project will allow the soybean processing plant to double its receiving capacity to 40 trucks and 30,000 bushels per hour.
The project will allow Bunge to increase its truck unloading capacity while increasing overall efficiency and reducing wait time for truck drivers, he said.
The plant is a fully integrated facility that receives soybeans from farmers within a 300-mile radius and then produces soybean oil, soybean meal and several oil blends.
The products are then used to produce animal feed and make cooking oils and plant-based proteins that are key ingredients for numerous consumer and restaurant brands.
The new project features:
—Two full-length 30-by-14-foot truck pits.
—Two new bucket elevators.
—Four new drag conveyors.
—Replacing three open-fill belts with storage tanks that hold 7 million bushels.
—Replacing manual gates with automated gates.
—Refinishing the concrete headhouse space for a motor control room.
Roberts said the project, which does not add any new employees, is meant to make the plant more efficient.
“The farmers are our customers,” Roberts said. “This will allow us to move more trucks faster through the facility.”
Mayor Tab Bowling said he appreciates Bunge’s willingness to do this project, especially since it will help reduce the truck backup on Church Street Northeast that often occurs during the harvest.
“It will help our farmers because they won’t have to wait as long,” Bowling said. “And it helps the safety in this area.”
Jeremy Nails, president and CEO of the Morgan County Economic Development Association, said this improved efficiency aids local soybean farmers during the harvest.
“This project will help Bunge stay competitive, and that’s what we like to see,” Nails said.
Roberts said they plan to start construction in December. The contract deadline will be December 2025, but he said they’ll push to complete the project by next fall’s harvest. They haven’t chosen a contractor yet.
The IDB unanimously approved the abatement of $444,470 in Decatur and state sales and use taxes during the construction period. It also agreed to an abatement of $624,000 over a 10-year period in noneducational real and personal property taxes.
The company estimates that the project will generate $768,000 in real and personal property school taxes over 10 years, which will go to the state, Morgan County, Decatur and Hartselle school systems.
Based in St. Louis, Missouri, Bunge Global SA was founded in 1818. It has over 23,000 employees in over 300 facilities located in more than 40 countries.
The Decatur plant was built by Goldkist in 1972. Bunge purchased the plant in 1982, and it is now one of the two largest soybean processing plants in North America. The other similarly sized plant is in Indiana.
Bunge-Decatur set a plant record when it processed 49.5 million bushels of soybean last year after spending $28.6 million on improving unloading and distribution efficiency in 2023.
IDB attorney Barney Lovelace said the plant officials didn’t expect to add employees with last year’s expansion but ended up adding 12 so it’s now at 219 employees. Their average annual salary, not including benefits, is $76,700.00.
“They’re obviously growing,” Lovelace said of the plant.
The 2023 project included improvements to existing buildings and equipment, adding a new building and installing manufacturing equipment.
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Dam issues
A lot of the plant’s production goes onto barges on the Tennessee River, so a major part of the project was redoing the belts that load barges.
However, Lovelace pointed out that Wilson Dam’s main lock is closed for repairs, and this is impacting barge traffic.
They had to close the main locks for additional inspections and possible emergency repairs after divers discovered cracking Sept. 25 in the lock gates on both the land and river sides.
Wilson Locks and Dam is located at Tennessee River Mile 259.4 near Florence.
Closing the lock was a precaution to prevent further damage to the gates and any possible loss of the lock’s functionality, according to the Corps of Engineers Nashville District.
“It takes an hour and a half to get one barge through the auxiliary lock,” Lovelace said.
Roberts said this increases the time for Bunge’s shipment of goods by 30 to 40 days.
Bowling said Decatur’s United Launch Alliance plant is also unable to ship rockets.
— bayne.hughes@decaturdaily.com or 256-340-2432
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