IOWA- The Iowa-based Ancient Brands Milling Company has announced their plans to invest almost $27 million in a massive expansion plan that will relocate their base of operations and increase their manufacturing capacity at their Dyersville plant.
The company plans to erect a massive 92,000 square foot large plant in Dyersville that will replace their current facility, which they acquired in 2020.
“Current expansion is really driven by extremely high demand for what we are currently doing, which is gluten-free, allergen-free, organic and non-GMO puffed grains,” said president Patrick Hemminger.
“And so we are at or near capacity on capacity-constricted equipment. The equipment we have now does not provide the ability for us to upgrade or to increase capacity utilization. So that really caused us to take a strong look at ways we could increase that capacity and the availability of our high-quality ingredients and capabilities, and we really took a strong look at that at the end of Q4 of 2021.”
According to Hemminger the company’s current capacity is 2.5 million pounds of grains per year, but this number will increase alongside the expansion
“We’re bringing in two new high-volume lines from our equipment partner in Europe. So we will be bringing in two separate lines and decommissioning our current line… By bringing in these two lines, our gluten-free, allergen-free capacity will increase to roughly 10 million lbs per year.”
“So the growth is two-fold. We’ll be increasing overall capacity, but also increasing our portfolio to include puffed wheats.”
Another aspect of their expansion plan is to focus more of their puffed grain manufacturing in the Midwest versus utilizing European imports.
“We purposely designed that as a facility inside of a facility,” he said, in regards to their new facility. “We are completely segregating the one processing bay from the other processing bay, and that is all the way through the warehouse. One of those processing bays is going to be gluten-free, top-nine-allergen-free with separate dock doors, separate air handling systems.”
The company project is currently in progress however they they plan to begin work in June. The equipment will arrive in the fourth quarter, and startup will take place in early 2023.
“We’re staying very conscious of the attributes that our current client partners enjoy while being able to structurally offer the new portfolio of puffed gluten-based grains,” Hemminger said.
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