General Purpose Feed Mill

CLIENT
Purina Mills, Inc.

This design-build greenfield feed mill project included a main processing tower with bulk loadout, a warehouse for bagged raw ingredients and plant offices, a bulk raw ingredient receiving building, and other process support buildings.

The primary construction method employed for the mill was vertical concrete slipform. Ibberson’s accomplished crew formed the tower in less than 200 hours of around-the-clock, continuous pouring.

Special cold-weather concrete handling methods were used to ensure proper curing in November temperatures of 10 to 30 degrees Fahrenheit. One of these involved the employment of reinforced poly plastic to enclose the slip deck and finishing scaffold, while the building interior was heated.

The feed mill was the first in the United States to feature Ibberson’s unique hybrid batching system, an approach to feed processing that has many advantages over traditional batching systems, including energy savings, greater batching accuracy of ingredients, longer equipment life expectancy, greater homogeneity of feed product, and better quality pelleted feeds.

In a creative measure to stay on track with the project schedule while the Owner handled land negotiations, Ibberson began construction of the slipform building forms in Minnesota. They were shipped to Ohio as soon as the land purchase was formalized, allowing the project to be completed by the date originally planned.