By KEVIN WALKER

Michigan Correspondent

CARROLLTON TWP., Mich. — Last week officials symbolically broke ground on a new Michigan Sugar Co. facility to provide feed for area dairy and beef cattle farmers.

The Bay City-based Michigan Sugar, a cooperative of sugar beet growers, and Texas-based Westway Feed Products joined local business and economic development leaders Feb. 7 for a groundbreaking ceremony on a new 3,700 square-foot liquid feed facility that will use beet molasses as a key ingredient.

“The exciting new partnership announced today will spark new economic activity in Carrollton Township and Saginaw County, while providing another new market for Michigan Sugar’s sugar beet farmers and further adding to our cooperative’s strong regional footprint,” said Mark Flegenheimer, president and CEO of Michigan Sugar.

“We’re proud to work alongside Westway Feed Products and all of the public and private partners that came together to make this new project possible.”

The facility will be built by Pumford Construction Co. of Saginaw and operated by Westway, based in Tomball, Texas. The liquid feeds company will use molasses produced by Michigan Sugar as a key ingredient in its liquid feed products.

Michigan Sugar received a $100,000 grant from the Michigan Department of Agriculture and Rural Development for the project; the grant was essential to help make the new plant possible, said Rob Clark, a company spokesman.

According to Clark, the new plant will employ five new people “right off the bat … Westway Feed will be running it. They want the molasses that we produce to sweeten up their liquid feed and add nutrients. Molasses is a byproduct of the sugar-making process.

“They want to start out slow, market their product and then later scale up, hopefully. They are confident their product will be successful,” he said.

Molasses helps cattle digest their food more fully, said Director of Strategic Development for Westway Feed Greg McLean, in a Feb. 7 article in MLive.

“The products that we make here at liquid feed plants contain – especially with the beet molasses – high levels of sugar still left in the molasses after they process it,” he explained. “So those high levels of sugar provide energy for the animals to be able to more fully digest their roughage and other feed.”

He said the project will benefit local livestock and sugar beet producers and allow both companies to spur additional economic growth. According to data from Michigan Sugar Co., the cooperative has roughly 1,000 grower-owners who harvested 150,662 acres of sugar beets last year, producing 3.85 million tons of sugar for processing at factories in Bay City, Caro, Croswell and Sebewaing.

That was less than in 2016, which the company attributes to excessive early-season rainfall followed by an extremely dry summer last year. Sugar content in beets harvested in 2017 was 18.47 percent, up from 15.85 percent in 2016.

Flegenheimer said there is potential for stronger prices and payments in 2018, especially if sugar content can be maintained at 2017 levels and tons harvested can be increased.

“Prices are taking a step in the right direction, since a longstanding trade dispute was settled in 2017,” he said. “Our hope is to see a combination of stronger sugar content and a high yield for 2018.”