Mercer Landmark Soybean
Extrusion Plant Going International
by Sheila Baltzell
After 2 years in production at the Rockford plant, Mercer Soy is perking
right along, extruding locally grown soybeans into oil and meal. The
oil is being sold in the human market, and the soy meal is a feed
supplement for livestock – meaning it is part of a combination of
grains, vitamins, minerals, etc to provide food for livestock grown
locally. But that is not all.
Scott Boulis,
general manager of Mercer Landmark in Rockford, John Wenning, Landmark’s
feed salesman and nutritionist, and consultant, Ed Burtch of
Burtch Seed, Rockford, recently returned from a 10 day trip to Seoul
South Korea and Manila, Philippines where they met with Mayette Ramos,
Philippino president of FFF Nutrition, a sales agent for various
livestock feed mills in the Philippines. Her company represents Mercer
Soy. In Seoul, South Korea, the group met with Mr. Cho (Aaron) with the
ILJU Trading Company, LTD, who is the sales agent for several livestock
feed mills in that country. Scott Boulis mentioned that Mercer Landmark
has never directly exported before, but, they expect their export volume to
make up 20% of total production when finalized.
Scott explained,
“Hog operations are not commercialized like they are in the US, they are
back-yard operations, where a family raises 5-6 hogs literally in their
backyard and sells them for slaughter at a neighborhood stockyard. Pork
is an important food in both countries, as well as fish. These countries
are in need of different grains to use in the feed mixture. They can not
grow much of their own feed. Seoul is mountainous, and the Philippines
are tropical and volcanic with land at a premium. The Philippines grows
mainly mangoes, peanuts, pineapple and rice. Mercer Landmark can provide
soybean meal to them and are in the midst of negotiations to export
their soy meal. The trio made the trip to market their product which is
a higher quality of soy meal with 6% natural oil retained versus the
usual competitors’ mix of less than ˝ of a percent of soybean oil. There
are not many big swine operations; the smaller backyard pens are not
messy; the hogs are well-cared-for, although they are a bit smaller than
ours. They raise them to 20 lbs. lighter because they do not have access
to corn and soybean meal for protein. We can feed longer in the United
States because those grains are readily available to us. Mercer
Landmark’s natural soy oil is in the meal with plenty of the protein
that these countries are looking to purchase. They already import.
Mayette Ramos
visited The Village of Rockford on June 1st and 2nd, 2009 to gather
more information and to discuss procedures for financing.
The men flew out
on Detroit on February 10th and arrived 14 hours later in
Tokyo, followed by Manila, Philippines the next day and stayed through
the 15th. They traveled then to Seoul, South Korea for a day
and left for the United States on February 17th. It was
exciting for them as they discussed business practices noting for Mrs.
Ramos and Mr. Cho that the export process is already in place. Landmark
uses poly-woven tote bags, which weigh 2,205 lbs full (or 1000
Kilograms). They are one metric ton. They are processed in Rockford,
bagged with the help of augers, and loaded into containers at the
rockford plant, trucked to Columbus, Ohio, and loaded onto rail cars.
The railroad then takes them to Long Beach, California where they are
loaded onto ships. When the containers reach the destination port, they
are loaded back onto a semi truck and delivered to the feed mill.
Boulis explained
that Burtch Seed already ships overseas. They sell soy beans for tofu
production for humans in Japan. Those beans can not be genetically
modified in any way. Honda of Marysville is one of the biggest
purchasers of soy beans in the area. They, too, ship by truck, then
container. It takes one month for the bean meal to reach its
destination. Pallets are also inspected and must be heat treated to stop
an invasion.
Seoul, South
Korea, through Philco AgriTech Co. LTD bought two containers of soy
meal to try, each weighing 20 metric tons. Other countries including
Nigeria, Japan and Russian have exchanged information with the Mercer
Soy office.
Below are some
great pictures taken during the trip. Click on the smaller pictures to
enlarge them.
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Pictures Below are of the
Philippines Leg of the trip. |

Philippine
Feed Mill Warehouse |

Control Room in Feed Mill |

Scott Boulis makes a presentation to management staff at the
Philippine
Feed Mill |
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Philippine Food Vendor - Notice the chicken foot. |

Philippine Jeep like a small bus |
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Left to right: Mayette Ramos,
Emily Villapondo, Scott Boulis, John Wenning, Ed Burtch, Mike
LeCano
Mike and Emily are both working for TSC Agri Commodities |

New resort being built. |

Philippine Countryside. |
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Pictures Below are of South Korea |

Very modern city |

Scott Boulis, Mr. Cho (Aaron)n
John Wenning, and Mr. Lee, owner of Philco
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Most buildings in Seoul are new following the Korean War. |

Mr. Lee ordering our lunch |

Lunch ~ Food was good but not familiar |

Lunchtime |

Looking over proposal
in our hotel room |

South Korea is mountainous |
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