Photo by Deb Gau ADM employees including Michael West and Dale Dierks, at left, explained how different products are made from corn at the ADM plant in Marshall. ADM was in the spotlight at a Marshall Area Chamber of Commerce event earlier this week.

MARSHALL — It’s a major employer in Marshall. But not everyone knows what the Archer Daniels Midland plant does in the community, Eric McVey said.

“What we find is, people in general know ADM is there in town, and that’s about it,” said McVey, plant manager for ADM.

This week, ADM employees were hoping to change that at a Business After Hours event at The Upper Room.

On Tuesday evening, Marshall Area Chamber of Commerce members were invited to meet ADM employees and learn more about the corn products made in Marshall. The ADM plant in Marshall makes products ranging from starch to sweeteners like corn syrup. Currently the plant is also currently undergoing expansions, McVey said.

“We’re expanding our starch production,” he said. “We’re going to make what is considered an industrial grade starch and a food grade starch.”

Industrial grade starch is used to make materials like cardboard or even construction materials like wallboard, McVey said.

Area residents often think of the Marshall ADM plant as an ethanol plant, but that’s not the main product made there, ADM employees said. At the plant, corn is processed into a wide variety of products like germ, which is used to make corn oil; corn gluten meal, which is high in protein and is used to make animal feed; dry starch; and corn syrup.

Dale Dierks, mill feedhouse superintendent at ADM in Marshall, said the plant grinds 200,000 bushels of corn a day. The corn is sourced from within a 50-mile area, he said.

Different products made at the Marshall plant are used for making candies, baked goods, beverages and even pet food, said Mandy Bosacker, quality control lab manager at ADM in Marshall.

Expansions to support more starch production at the plant started last summer.

“If you drive by the back of the plant, you can see some of that construction that is currently ongoing,” McVey said. “The goal is to have that online hopefully by the end of the year, or close to that.”

“We added a large loadout building, and we added a decent amount of rail track to load out more starch. And the rest, we reused some space within our buildings. We’re adding quite a bit of equipment and capacity to actually process more starch,” McVey said.

The expansions will also add jobs to the Marshall ADM location, he said.

McVey said ADM has worked with the city of Marshall to help make the expansions possible. In 2021, the city of Marshall approved a business tax abatement for the project.

The expansion project at ADM was also one of eight projects statewide to receive grant funding from MnDOT’s Minnesota Rail Service Improvement program in 2022. ADM was awarded $1.87 million to help construct the new loadout building and rail connection.

McVey said ADM held a Business After Hours event as a way to help inform community members about what they do. ADM makes a positive impact in the Marshall area community both through employment and industry, and through giving, he said. “We want to help. We want people to know what we do.”

Programs like ADM Cares give back to causes like hunger relief, investment in education, and sustainable agriculture. ADM Cares grant recipients in the Marshall area have included organizations like United Way of Southwest Minnesota and the Southwest Minnesota Private Industry Council.

“It’s been a great crowd so far,” McVey said of Tuesday’s event. “The weather worked out well, the location was terrific, and people are interested in learning what we do.”