Louis Dreyfus Adds Refined Glycerin Production, 10 Jobs
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Nine years after the town of Claypool watched as Louis Dreyfus Commodities opened a massive soybean crushing and biodiesel plant, the global ag company unveiled a significant expansion at the Claypool plant Wednesday. Louis Dreyfus has been marketing crude glycerin, a co-product of the biodiesel process, at Claypool since the facility opened in 2007 and is now refining the glycerin at the Claypool plant following a $20 million expansion. Refined glycerin can be used in a multitude of everyday products. “It’s the bonding agent in your granola bar. It’s the capsule casing in your medication. It’s the emollient in your body lotion,” said Sean Doyle, regional head of Oilseeds for North American at Louis Dreyfus. “Glycerin is in everything and the list of uses is growing even more.” New applications for the product are being found in industries ranging from personal care, pharmaceuticals, health care, automotive and textiles, according to the company. The new refinery is the second in the United States and is the company’s first in North America. It has one other in Germany. The refined glycerin facility will have a capacity of 80 million pounds per year. Company officials expressed excitement over the opportunity to venture into new markets and work more directly with end users. “By adding refined glycerin to our product list, we hope to become an even stronger partner to local soybean growers and hope to bring even more robust year round demand for their soybeans,” Doyle said Wednesday prior to a ribbon cutting at the plant south of Warsaw on Ind. 15. The Claypool expansion is another example of advances in Innovation and technology, said Beth Bechdol, president of Agribusiness Council of Indiana. Bechdol attended the grand opening of the plant in 2007 and credited a strong economic climate with helping companies like Louis Dreyfus consider locating and expanding in Indiana. “Agriculture keeps finding opportunities to do more, to find new markets, to solve the next set of big problems … Dreyfus is right in the middle of that with this new endeavor.” she said. The 165-year old company, headquartered in The Netherlands, is a global competitor in agricultural commodities and has 260 facilities throughout the world. Among the many foods the firm specializes in are grains, cotton, rice, orange juice, oilseeds and coffee. The plant in Claypool employs about 100 people. Ten people were added as a result of the expansion.
