Ambassadors had the opportunity to tour one of the most advanced seed corn manufacturing facilities in the world today. Matt Moyer with Bayer Crop Science at Grinnell’s Commercial facility shared more about all the work that happens at the Grinnell plant. The Grinnell community is home to two Bayer manufacturing facilities, Grinnell Commercial & Iowa Foundation.
Seed corn production has an 86 year history in Grinnell. The original facility was at 3rd & Main St from 1938-1954 when it moved to the old site on 6th Ave. That location still holds warehouse and storage space but the main production facility was moved to its current site in 2001.
Located on a total of 140 acres just east of city limits, Grinnell Commercial is responsible for creating roughly 1.5 million bags of seed corn to be sold to farmers across the state of Iowa. The process starts at privately-owned growing locations in; Bondurant, Conrad, Grinnell, Oelwein and Waterloo where anywhere from 40-50 different hybrids are grown each year. Corn is then harvested on the cob from those locations and brought to Grinnell for processing.
Once arriving in Grinnell, the corn is de-husked and dried before kernels are removed from the cob. Each kernel is sorted by size and shape and then treated. The corn is then packaged and shipped out to distribution centers before being sent to customers. Dekalb and Channel are the two major brands produced in Grinnell. Please know this is a very brief description of a detailed and intricate process that the Grinnell Commercial team has mastered. If you ever have the chance to tour a facility, we highly recommend you do!
Grinnell Commercial team runs anywhere from 100-200 employees over the course of the year depending on the production schedule. Their technician team is one of the best in the country and often tasks with piloting new programs and hosting tours like ours.
Special thanks to Matt, Susie, Stephanie and the rest of the Bayer team for hosting us today during their busy season. We had a great time learning more about Grinnell Commercial!
Pictured L-R: Fran Conn, Lisa Cirks - Cirks Financial Services, Rick Jacoby - Grinnell American Legion, Rachel Arseneault - Ramsey-Weeks Inc. Real Estate, Trent Arment - MCG - Mahaska Communication Group, Susie Pickhardt - Bayer Crop Science, Matt Moyer - Bayer Crop Science, Hannah Vos - UnityPoint at Home, Kody Bigelow - Walmart Grinnell, Marissa Ylagan - Grinnell Chamber, Rachael Kinnick - Grinnell Chamber
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