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CUT THE RIBBON • Ribbon cutting at the new Moroni Turkey Feed Nephi Unloading Facility was held last Thursday. The cooperative effort involved Union Pacific Railroad, Moroni Feed Company, Norbest, and a host of other corporations. Dignitaries include, left to right; Bob Cooper, Project Coordinator; Boyd Howarth, Juab County Commission Chairman; Representative Mike Styler, Utah House of Representatives; Frank Cook, Retired Vice-President and Feed Division Manager, Moroni Feed Company; Scott Hintze, MFC Board Member; David Bailey, President and CEO, Moroni Feed Company; Tim Blackham, MFC Board Chairman (holding the scissors); Gary Olson, MFC Board Member; Cary Peterson, Utah Commissioner of Agriculture; Orson Cook, MFC Board Member; Mark Johansen, MFC Board Member; George Dyches, Vice-President and Processing Division Manager, Moroni Feed Company; Leonard Blackham, Vice-President and Feed Division Manager, Moroni Feed Company; Bob Morley, Chief Financial Officer, Moroni Feed Company; Tom Wiser, Wiser Rail Engineering; Gary Geist, King's Valley Industries.

A new unloading and loading facility for Moroni Feed Company was officially opened on Thursday, June 20, 2002, between Nephi and Levan with the arrival of the first shuttle train.

The facility is built to handle grain shuttles from the Midwest and will save Moroni Feed about $50,000 in transportation costs over the rate that they have been paying for 100 cars. The corn value for a 100 car shuttle is about $1 million dollars.

The oval of track will hold 100 cars and their engines and the 392,857 bushels of corn from each shuttle will be stored in two large bins. Each bin is designed to hold 400,000 bushels and is 95 feet wide and 103 feet high. The facility is equipped with 4 foot wide bucket elevators to move the grain from the train to the silos. Each train car takes about 5 minutes to unload and move the grain and the train must be unloaded within 18 hours of arrival. Corn from the silos will be weight and loaded onto trucks. Each truck has two trailers and each trailer can be loaded at the same time.

The Union Pacific shuttle trains have a turn-around time of 9 days. The facility is estimated to need 1,200 cars each year to service the turkey industry alone.

Intermountain Farmers Association is in the process of building a dairy feed plant at this facility and will have additional storage at the site and additional shuttle trains will be needed to service their needs. Other grains beside corn may be needed for the IFA facility.

Moroni Feed is co-op in Sanpete County sells feed to individual growers and buys and processes turkey in a state-of-the-art processing facility in Moroni. Turkeys are sold under the Norbest® brand and shipped all over the US. MFC employs 875 employees and has an annual payroll in excess of 15 million dollars. They are the largest employer in Sanpete County. The also have a processing facility in Salina where cooked, smoked, and roasted products are produced.

In Juab County MFC has a breeder farm on the west bench west of Nephi. At this facility eggs are laid. These eggs are transported to the turkey hatchery in Moroni, Utah where the poults are hatched. The young turkeys are then delivered to the individual family owned farms.