Cargill Gears Up to Launch Glycerin Business

23/02/06 Cargill is poised to enter the global glycerin business as it prepares to open a 30-million-pounds-per-year glycerin refinery in Iowa Falls, Iowa. The company is actively seeking customers for the product, which will be produced in a refinery adjacent to the company’s new 37.5-million-gallon-capacity biodiesel production plant. The biodiesel plant is slated to open in late April-early May, with the glycerin plant to follow in June. Commercial volumes of United States Pharmocopeia (USP) grade as well as other grades of glycerin from soybean oil will be available for customers by July 1.

“We will be the first North American producer to combine soybean crushing, biodiesel production and USP Glycerin production at one plant site,” said Kurtis Miller, president of Cargill Industrial Oils & Lubricants. “This complete backward integration will enable us to deliver a stable, consistent quality product affordably and reliably to customers around the world. Add Cargill’s expertise in risk management and global supply chain solutions, and our ability to deliver distinctive value will be second to none.”

Glycerin is a neutral, colorless, sweet-tasting thick liquid with a wide range of food, pharmaceutical and industrial applications. It is highly valued as a skin moisturizer in soaps and lotions, a softening agent in candy and baked goods, a substitute for Propylene Glycol in water-based hydraulic fluids, an anti-freeze component in paints, coatings and hydraulic equipment and a plasticizer in cellophane, to name just a few of its uses. It is, according to the Soap and Detergent Association, “virtually non-toxic and non-irritating, and has no known negative environmental effects.” Cargill will work with the full range of customers to build its glycerin business both domestically and globally.