116 3rd St SE
Cedar Rapids, Iowa 52401
Cargill marks 50 years of Cedar Rapids corn mill
Oct. 16, 2017 8:00 pm, Updated: Oct. 17, 2017 10:07 am
CEDAR RAPIDS - When it was just starting, the corn milling plant on Cedar Rapids' southeast side processed just 9,000 bushels of corn a day - about 40 football fields.
Five decades later, the Cargill Corn Milling plant goes through 100,000 bushels a day.
Cargill employees, executives, retirees, Iowa lawmakers and Cedar Rapids officials gathered at the plant Monday to celebrate its 50-year anniversary.
When it was bought in 1967, the Cedar Rapids plant, at 1710 16th St. SE, marked Cargill's first entrance into corn milling, a business that now includes 38 plants worldwide producing starches, sweeteners, animal feed and more. All combined, those plants go through 1.7 million bushels of corn a day, company executives said.
'Today it's about 7,700 football fields of corn that our network grinds. It all started right here,” said Mike Wagner, managing director of Cargill's Starches and Sweeteners North America Business.
Cargill purchased the plant from the Corn Starch and Syrup Co., which was founded by Joseph Sinaiko in 1965.
Jerry Pisney, now 78 and retired, was the 17th employee hired at the plant in 1965. When he started sweeping floors there at 21, Pisney, who attended Monday's event, said he didn't think the mill would last.
'It was all used machinery to begin with. The walls were concrete slabs bolted to beams. It just didn't look like it would make it,” said Pisney, of Shueyville.
Work conditions weren't ideal either, he recalled.
'The fumes were terrible. The hours were unbelievable. If your replacement didn't show up, you worked another four hours,” he said.
Now, the corn milling plant sits on 31 acres of land and employs 200 people and another 80 contractors, according to Cargill. Located along the Cedar River, the facility survived the 2008 and 2016 floods that hit Cedar Rapids.
After the 2008 flood, employees had the corn milling plant back online in three months, they said Monday.
'It took everyone on the Cedar Rapids team, with their persistence, to restore and rebuild this facility, and without it we wouldn't be here today talking about the 50th anniversary,” said Mitch Gardner, operations director for Texturizers and Specialties North America.
Cedar Rapids Mayor Ron Corbett thanked the company for its 'commitment” to the city.
'If you were ever going to abandon the commitment here in Cedar Rapids at this facility, (2008) would have been the time to abandon that. But you didn't. You ended up doubling down,” he said.
Since that flood, Cargill has acquired more land on the city's southeast side, in a neighborhood known as the Flats. The company has purchased 38 lots, mainly small residential or vacant plots, in the Flats since 2009, assessor's records show.
Cargill also has a lease agreement with the city for 10 other properties in the area, with an option to purchase the land.
Brian Bares, the Cedar Rapids facility manager, said Cargill was eyeing the land for future expansions, but does not have specific plans as of yet.
'It all just fits into our interest to diversify the products that we make and sustain the ones that we've got. We're just preparing for growth of some sort,” Bares said.
Cargill is privately owned and based in Minneapolis. It reported $109.7 billion in sales and revenue during its 2017 fiscal year.
In addition to the corn milling plant, the company has two soybean processing operations in the city - Cargill East on C Avenue NE near Quaker Oats, and Cargill West, on 12th Avenue in the southwest quadrant.
The company's history dates back to 1865 and has Iowa roots. Founder William Wallace Cargill moved from Janesville, Wis., to Conover, Iowa, where he eventually purchased a grain storage flat house and started the company.
W.W. Cargill moved to Minnesota after he got married.
U.S. Rep. Rod Blum, R-Iowa, joked Monday he was eager to talk with Speaker of the House about Cargill's move to Iowa.
'Our current Speaker of the House, Speaker Paul Ryan, he lives in Janesville, Wis. It's his hometown,” Blum said. 'I can't wait to ask the Speaker, ‘Why would a company have to leave Janesville, Wis., to come to Iowa to start one of the finest privately owned companies in the world?' I can't wait for his response.”
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