QUAD COUNTY CORN PROCESSORS

When a group of investors formed Quad County Corn Processors in 2000, their plan was to build an ethanol plant in northwest Iowa that would produce 18 million gallons of the corn-based fuel each year. Their goal was met quickly and today the Galva, Iowa, facility has nearly doubled its intentional capacity, producing more than 30 million gallons a year.

Quad County Corn Processors was born from an idea of six individuals who saw a 100-acre-plus tract of land along Highway 20 as a strategic and convenient location. The plant is located near where four county corners — Cherokee, Buena Vista, Ida and Sac — come together. As Quad County Corn Processors has grown, the site has become an industrial park with a dry-ice business already working and a new soy diesel plant being constructed now.

“This is an excellent location for us,” said Maintenance Manager Rex Rimmer. “That was taken into account when the plans were in the works for the plant. There’s a lot of farmland within about a 45-mile radius, which is a

Quad County Corn Processors is conveniently located along Highway 20 in Galva, Iowa. The facility began sending products out in 2002 and currently produces 30 million gallons of ethanol per year.

major source of corn; plus, there are several elevators, including Galva Holstein Ag, which is a shareholder in Quad County. The location right along Highway 20 is convenient for trucks to get in and out as well.”

The original six individuals who founded Quad County began fundraising to build the facility in late 2000, and within two months had more than 420 Iowa residents who invested and became part of the member-owned company. Within two years, the plant began production and shipment of its first loads of product.

Many of Quad County’s shareholders are area farmers, who together are the largest supplier of the 11 million bushels of corn processed each year in the company’s facility. The area has rich farmland with a large and steady supply of the corn needed for Quad County Corn Processors to use in making ethanol and other products. Ethanol is the company’s top product offering, including E85 — a blend of 85 percent ethanol and 15 percent gasoline — which it wholesales to retailers in Iowa.

Diverse product offerings

Working 24 hours a day, seven days a week, Quad County Corn Processors produces 90,000 gallons of ethanol a day. In addition to making ethanol, the company produces premium feed co-products used in beef and swine rations. More than 246,000 tons of feed products were produced last year and marketed under the name Golden Bran.

“Our process is very efficient in many ways,” explained Rimmer. “Every bit of the corn that’s brought in here is used in some capacity; there’s no waste. We put it through a process that, in the end, produces four products: liquid, wet and dry feed for livestock and alcohol that’s marketed to blending facilities that will turn it into fuel.”

Thorough product testing is ongoing in Quad County Corn Processors’ lab.