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ADM Celebrates Anniversary in Clinton

One of the largest employers in Clinton is celebrating its anniversary. Wednesday, the governor and other officials joined ADM leaders in marking 40 years since the company bought a corn processing plant from Nabisco.

Plant Manager Eric Fasnacht says in the last 40 years ADM has significantly expanded the plant - it currently processes 350,000 bushels of corn a day from local farmers and elevators. That works out to between 400 and 500 truckloads a day.

"Separate the corn kernel into its fractions - we make different kinds of corn sweetener, dry starches, crystalline sugars, and feed components that go out to the animal food or feed industry."

Currently, there are about one thousand workers in the plant every day from ADM and local contractors.

On Wednesday, the company also celebrated the opening of a new mill to process corn that cost 250 million dollars. Fasnacht says the company will continue to invest in Clinton.

"We're looking at even another project that'll be starting here in the fall with a Japanese company that we're partnering with on another big project, so we'll see some of that starting to happen later this year. "

Hiring for that joint project has already started.

He says a corn processing facility first opened in Clinton back in the early 1900's, and probably in the 50's, Nabisco bought the plant. It was then sold to ADM in 1982.

A native of Detroit, Herb Trix began his radio career as a country-western disc jockey in Roswell, New Mexico (“KRSY, your superkicker in the Pecos Valley”), in 1978. After a stint at an oldies station in Topeka, Kansas (imagine getting paid to play “Louie Louie” and “Great Balls of Fire”), he wormed his way into news, first in Topeka, and then in Freeport Illinois.
Susanna Kemerling is WVIK Quad Cities NPR's 2022 Fellowship Host/Reporter. She graduated from Northern Illinois University for Media Studies in Communication and spent the last year working as a Teaching Assistant through the graduate program at NIU.