2013 Perdue Farms Tour

Perdue Farms, Inc., welcomed 27 farmers, Extension and University of Delaware staffers to its Salisbury, Md., grain processing facility Aug. 22 for a rare behind-the-scenes look at the next steps in the soybean value chain. The group was split into two groups to visit both the crush plant and the oil refinery. At the crush plant, up to 50,000 bushels a day can be processed. Soybeans are screened to remove foreign matter first, then cracked to facilitate removal of the hulls. Once through the shaker to separate the hulls, the beans are cracked again into smaller pieces and may be further processed into flakes, or sold as “mill feed.” Flakes are “washed” with hexane multiple times to extract the soybean oil.

After the hexane has been removed from the flakes, the meal is ground into a fine powder. Hexane is recaptured for re-use.

At the soybean oil refinery, crude oil is first centrifuged to degum the oil, then washed, bleached and distilled to create a clear, colorless and neutral flavored salad oil. Along the way, products such as lecithin, soapstock and Vitamin E are extracted.

The soybean oil refinery can process about 300 million pounds of oil per year, which is approximately two percent of the nation’s supply.

Perdue Farms treated the tour participants to lunch and spoke about its core businesses, which will create $4 billion in sales this year. The company plans to increase its crush from 50 million bushels in 2013 to 70 million in 2016.

Perdue is also promoting its Plenish high-oleic beans to growers on Delmarva. The beans have an improved fatty acid profile and higher heat stability so the oil performs better in the fryer. John Ade, senior vice president of grain sales and marketing at Perdue,  said that none of the Plenish beans that have been grown on Delmarva have shown any yield drag. Perdue is paying a premium to farmers who sign up to grow Plenish beans.