Chicago is My Home

09
Jul

Cargill in Minneapolis to Build New Soy Foam Plant on Chicago’s South Side

Author: Adam Fendelman, Category: Business

CHICAGO – Cargill, which is a Minneapolis food-ingredients producer, said on Tuesday it broke ground on a $22-million plant on an 80-acre site on South Torrence Aveneue on Chicago’s far south side. The plant will use soybeans instead of petroleum products to make an ingredient used in plastic foam for automotive, furniture and bedding products.

The south side location, which already houses Cargill’s existing operations, will make Cargill’s BIOH-branded and soybean-based polyols, which is used to make urethane products. Cargill wants to expand its production of environmentally friendly chemicals derived from renewable sources such as plants.

The company also stated in a Chicago Tribune article on Tuesday that Chicago is an “ideal site” for this type of a facility and the Chicago polyols factory “will be the first world-scale, bio-based polyols plant ever built”.

By Megan O’Neil