COLWICH, KAN. — ICM, Inc., a process technology supplier to the agriculture, feed and ethanol industries, announced Dec. 15 it has partnered with Summit Sustainable Ingredients to construct a wheat protein ingredient manufacturing plant in Phillipsburg, Kan.

At this new state-of-the-art facility, Summit Sustainable Ingredients, an affiliate of Summit Agricultural Group, will produce vital wheat gluten ingredients for use in pet food, food and specialty feed applications.

"Building this new facility will close the gap between the supply and demand of high-quality wheat protein ingredients and reduce our reliance on imports," said Bruce Rastetter, chief executive officer of Summit Agricultural Group. "We chose ICM as a strategic partner because of their best-in-class expertise when it comes to integrating process technologies into a renewable fuel plant and superior capability for optimizing plant efficiency."

Construction is scheduled to wrap up by the summer of 2023. Once finished, the facility will be the largest vital wheat gluten production plant in North America, according to ICM.

"Everyone on this team shares a commitment to designing and implementing solutions for high-quality ingredients and low-carbon biofuel production" said Dave VanderGriend, chief executive officer of ICM. "We're all very excited about using our expertise to retrofit the Prairie Horizon plant and integrate it with the new wheat facility in a way that makes a significant positive impact environmentally as well as economically."

Summit said it was driven to this new facility project after recognizing wheat as a sustainable and nutritious ingredient, and one that is currently in short supply. Together with ICM, Summit chose Flottweg to supply a gluten extraction system at the new facility. Flottweg manufactures liquid-solid separation technologies and is a longstanding partner in the biofuel and food industries, ICM shared.

"This project represents an exciting milestone for us," said Dan Ellis, president of Flottweg Americas. "We've worked on several wheat protein plants in Europe and Australia, but this will be the first one in North America. That said, it won't be our first collaboration with ICM, a trusted and long-time partner in the biofuel industry."

Residual starch from wheat processing will be converted to approximately 50 million gallons of low-carbon, renewable biofuel per year, The facility’s close proximity to Prairie Horizon Agri-Energy, a biorefinery acquired by Summit earlier in 2021, will help facilitate this.

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