Prairie AquaTech has broken ground on its new soybean meal plant in South Dakota.
The new 300,000 square-foot, $60 million facility at Volga will add 35 employees to the current staff of 30 people. The factory will be able to produce annually about 30,000 tons of a major protein component that will go into fish feeds.
Other partners vital to the $60 million project and its continued success include South Dakota State University and the Brookings Economic Development Corporation.
“For projects of this magnitude, it really takes a village to make it happen,” said Mark Luecke, managing director and CEO of Prairie AquaTech, which makes a protein-rich ingredient used in fish feed.
“Essentially what we’re doing,” he explained, “is fermenting soybean meal. We buy soybean meal from South Dakota Soybean Processors in Volga. They have a plant down in Miller that produces non-genetically modified meal.
“We ferment that. And on site, we also have a small feed mill. That allows us to take our ingredients and mix them with other ingredients and pelletize that into a fish feed.”
Luecke noted that the need for a larger plant had been on the radar for some time. The fermentation process at the present AquaTech plant is done in several 2,000-gallon tanks. The tanks at the new plant will be done in 40,000-gallon tanks. That will drive a big demand for soybean meal from SDSP, which Luecke said produced about 700,000 tons on an annual basis.
“We’ll buy about 50,000 tons to get started,” he said. “We’ll be a good customer of theirs.”
Luecke said the plant is expected to be operational in 12 months.
“This groundbreaking represents a significant milestone for our company and for the development of new value-added agriculture businesses in South Dakota,” Luecke said in a news release. “We’re helping farmers by adding value to soybeans produced in the region. The new plant is also evidence of the successful commercialization of research coming out of SDSU.”
Global impact
While Prairie Aquatech’s presence will be visible in South Dakota, Luecke sees its products impacting a global demand at a time when the world’s oceans have been over-fished.
“We’re trying to satisfy the world’s demand for animal protein,” he said. “Aqua culture, or fish farming has been done for centuries. What’s happened is its sophistication as a business has improved dramatically over the past 20 years.”
He explained that the most efficient way to convert plant protein to animal protein is in fish: 1.5 pounds of plant feed can produce 1 pound of fish protein. For a cow that ratio is about 8 pounds of plant food to produce 1 pound of beef protein.
“We are an ag state, so we know how to raise livestock,” Luecke said. “And fish is just another form of livestock.” And AquaTech will help feed those finned livestock.
He noted primary markets for fish feed are “where higher-quality fish are currently being raised,” such as in the Snake River Valley in Idaho, which accounts for “50 percent of U.S. trout production. And trout is an important species to us, so that will be an important market.”
He also cited Canada, which “has four times the amount of salmon and trout production that the U.S. does.”
Looking ahead to the expansion of Prairie AquaTech, Luecke again stressed the role of the company’s village-partners.
