Simplot Ethanol Plant Closes

The J.R. Simplot Company has closed its Caldwell, Idaho, ethanol plant.

Built in 1985, the plant was designed to convert potato by-products from the nearby potato processing plant to fuel grade ethanol, which has been marketed throughout southern Idaho, primarily by Stinker service stations.

Simplot Food Group President Kevin Storms said the plant was closed because there was not enough potato feedstock available to operate on a profitable basis. The facility had been producing approximately one million gallons of ethanol a year. Its capacity was 2.4 million gallons.

Storms said there are two reasons for the reduction in feedstock – efficiencies in potato processing which have reduced wastes, and a scaleback in capacity of the potato-plant from seven production lines when the ethanol plant was built, to three lines today. Three of the lines were closed in a 1997 restructuring and a fourth placed on standby in 2003.

He said there is interest in the facility by a potential buyer, but no definitive agreement is yet in place. It would be imperative that a new operator use feedstock in addition to potato by-products.

The plant employed nine people. All six hourly employees displaced by the closure had the opportunity to transfer to the Caldwell potato plant. The three salaried employees were allowed to apply for openings elsewhere in the Simplot Company.

Simplot closed a similar ethanol plant at Heyburn, Idaho, in May 2003, concurrent with closure of its potato processing plant at that location.