United Co-op celebrated the official ribbon cutting of its 18,000-square-foot Mt. Pleasant Feed Mill on May 27, marking a significant investment in agriculture, feed production, and service to producers across the region.

The facility was made possible through the partnership of the Tennessee Department of Agriculture’s AgTrack Cost Share Program. The AgTrack program is a competitive grant initiative that supports starting or expanding agricultural, food, and forestry businesses. It prioritizes value-added and processing projects that create jobs, boost local market access, and benefit fellow producers to strengthen agricultural and forestry businesses.

The Mt. Pleasant Feed Mill provides an important avenue for both livestock producers and commodity growers. Located in a central agricultural area, the facility creates opportunities for local growers to market their crops while enabling United Co-op to purchase commodity ingredients directly from local producers. Those ingredients can then be used to manufacture high-quality, locally produced feed that benefits livestock producers across the region.

“The planning of our new feed mill goes back to early 2021, when our members and board were asking about a way for us to better serve the livestock farmers in our area,” says United Co-op’s Chief Executive Officer Randy Stubblefield. “When the AgTrack grant program became available, it provided an opportunity for us to team up with the Tennessee Department of Agriculture to build a state-of-the-art facility and be able to serve our members and owners for many years to come.”

“This feed mill is going to impact producers on both sides of the business; it’s really important,” he adds. “We have a huge livestock presence in the state, but we have a lot of row-crop producers, too. We are going to be able to market the grain and cracked corn from our local producers to put in the feed to take care of our livestock producers. It’s a way to keep our grain local and feed it to our local cattle.”

The feed mill was designed using insights from tours of other feed mills, incorporating lessons on what to replicate and what to avoid, resulting in features such as all-concrete walls and wider, taller bays.

“Employees at other mills gave their recommendations of what they would do and not do if they rebuilt their mills. So, our bays are a little bit wider, and our walls are a little bit taller,” says Brian Ladd, United’s chief operating officer of the livestock division, who played a big part in opening the mill. “The capacity of our ingredient phase is larger than most of the mills we looked at because they said theirs were not wide enough to hold all the ingredients. This gives us a significantly larger storage area, enabling approximately 15 loads of key ingredients, which improves supply reliability.”

The mill primarily produces feed for beef cattle. Feed is typically blended directly onto trucks and delivered quickly within a territory where over 70 percent of the cattle are located within a 50-mile radius, improving logistics, reducing travel through congested areas, and minimizing mechanical handling. This reduced handling lowers pellet damage and dust, a benefit already noted by customers.

Governance for the project involved cooperative directors, who had to approve the feed mill initiative and revisit it as the organization evolved from United Farm and Home Cooperative, which later merged with MidSouth Farmers Cooperative to form United Co-op.

At the grand opening festivities, United Co-op was honored to celebrate this milestone alongside State Representative Scott Cepicky, State Senator Joey Hensley, Mt. Pleasant Mayor Bill White, Tennessee Commissioner of Agriculture Andy Holt, Deputy Commissioner Ryan King, members of the Ag Inputs staff, Doss Brothers, Inc., cooperative members, the United Co-op Board of Directors, and many others who supported the project from planning to completion.

“We appreciate everyone who had input in getting this feed mill up and running,” says Josh Roberson, facility manager of the mill. “It took a lot of people a lot of time to make this happen, and we believe it’s going to be a good thing for our customers and the area that we cover.”

“We’d love for everybody to come by and check out the mill,” he adds. “We’re happy to welcome producers and show them what we do, what we make, and how we make it. We are here for them and are excited to welcome our customers to United Co-op.”