HOMER — A group of Western New York entrepreneurs is pressing to restart production at a long-closed soybean-crushing facility in the village of Homer.
“We’re going to be a converter of soybeans into soybean meal, which is of course dairy feed, and soybean oil, which goes into a variety of different products,” says Charles Rader, member of Homer Soy Products, LLC.
Rader set up that company along with seven other investors in March 2012 after they learned of a shuttered 25,000-square-foot soybean-crushing facility on 3 acres of land at 4 Center St. in Homer. The group’s other investors wish to remain unnamed at this time.
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They’re hoping to close on the soybean facility as early as February. After that, Homer Soy Products will start a series of renovations expected to take three to six months. Then the company will hire 20 to 25 employees and start operations in Homer. It is slated to ultimately process 75 million pounds of soybeans annually in the village.
The project carries an estimated price tag of just over $2 million, according to Rader.
“We’re going to be putting a roof on, putting a fence in,” he says. “We’re going to side the facility. There were some environmental issues in the past that we will need to invest in to bring this up to code and have it be a place we and the community can be proud of.”
Funding for the project comes in a mix of state aid, bank loans, and investor equity. Empire State Development is set to provide $485,319 in grants and tax credits, while New York State Homes and Community Renewal has earmarked $315,000 in loans and grants.
Those state awards were announced as part of the Regional Economic Development Council initiative. Rader declines to share the name of the bank involved in the project.
He also declines to disclose revenue projections for Homer Soy Products, saying it’s too early to do so. But he expects the region’s agricultural producers to welcome the facility’s reopening.
“For them it represents significant cost savings,” Rader says. “If you’ve only got to ship soybeans a short distance, it’s certainly an economy for them.”
The soybean-crushing facility will also help dairy farmers with its ability to contribute to feeding cows, Rader continues.
“They are the Greek yogurt kings of the world in this area of the country, and Greek yogurt takes two or three times as much milk as regular yogurt,” he says. “So the dairy farmers are rejoicing that this is taking place.”
This isn’t Rader’s first business venture. He owned a chemical manufacturing, research, and services company, IsleChem LLC, for nine years. He sold that company, which is located on Grand Island on New York’s western border with Canada, in December of 2010.
Operating a chemical company led him to emphasize safe and environmentally sound operations, Rader says. He doesn’t have information on the contractors that will renovate the shuttered soybean-crushing facility, but says Homer Soy Products will focus on using local vendors and contractors.
The soybean-crushing operation at 4 Center St. has been closed since 2005, according to Garry VanGorder, executive director of the Cortland County Business Development Corp., which worked with Homer Soy Products in its bid to secure state funding for the facility. The crushing plant had been run by Round House Mill, Inc., of Cortland, he adds.
“Since the original plant closed, there have been a couple of different entities that have been interested in reopening it,” VanGorder says. “They just weren’t able to pull it all together. This group has been pretty persistent in its belief that there’s opportunity here. They pulled together their financing. We’re happy.”
Contact Seltzer at rseltzer@cnybj.com
