With more than 900,000-head across eleven US locations, Five Rivers Cattle, LLC. is the world’s largest cattle feeder. Kersey, Colorado is home to the Kuner Feedlot, which currently houses up to 100,000-head on the 400 acre feedyard area. Located on the Great Plains of Northern Colorado, the Kuner was built in 1974, and was the third feedyard built and owned by the Monfort family of Greeley.
In 1966, Monfort pioneered the practice of cooking, rolling and feeding grain warm to cattle. Today, most feedyards process their own corn flakes and other grains to enhance digestibility, palatability and the more efficient use of grain fed to cattle. After four decades of operation, retrofits, automation upgrades, and changing nutritional demands, Five Rivers Cattle decided that they should begin planning a new renovation to modernize their Kuner operations.
AGRA Industries, Inc. (Merrill, WI) was selected as the design-build Engineering, Procurement, and Construction (EPC) Contractor. AGRA has large portfolio of design-build experience in the food industry, completing more than $400 Million in projects for Bayer Cropscience (formerly Monsanto), Corteva Agriscience (Dow DuPont), and Syngenta – combined.
The new project is set to be completed by November, replacing the existing process with a fully-automated system capable of producing 120 ton per hour of steam flaked corn. “AGRA aims to align our business with innovative partners who are continuously looking for ways to push the status-quo of food processing solutions. Five Rivers’ new flaking system will be the new industry standard,” said Ernest Hinner, AGRA’s Vice President of Sales and Marketing.