New chemical mixing plant to be built on Midway

The lot where Cesco's new plant will be built sits just behind Cowden Gravel & Ready Mix Inc.'s main operation. With the foundation-only permit approved, construction of the plant will begin soon.

Cesco Solutions, Inc., an industrial chemical company based in the Irongate industrial park, will at least double its business with the construction of a new mixing plant at the east end of Midway Lane, according to owner and president Karl Larsen.

In addition to mixing equipment, the 13,000-square-foot building, at 2215 Midway Lane, will house a larger research and development laboratory and upstairs office space, allowing for larger operations than their current plant at 3715 Irongate Rd., Larsen said.

“We’ll have the ability to have things laid out more efficiently than we do now,” he said. “And as the company grows, we’ll have the ability to support that.”

Construction of the facility will likely take six to eight months, according to Larsen. The facility will be built by Credo Construction, Inc., of Bellingham.

Brian Smart, a planner with the City of Bellingham Planning and Community Development Department, confirmed that a binding site plan had been filed and a building permit was under review. He also said that a foundation-only permit had been issued to allow work on the foundation to begin.

Dawn Harju, who runs the Whatcom Construction Resources Plan Center across the street from the site, said she doubts the new facility will affect her business much. Although it is prime walking territory for her dog, Samson, she said.

According to documents filed with the City of Bellingham Planning and Community Development Department, the new facility will have a low impact environmentally.

Larsen said Cesco focuses on making products for petrochemical, pulp and paper, transportation, water treatment and food processing applications that are more environmentally friendly than traditional products.

“People think about solvents being harmful, but we use products like soybean-based solvents,” which are low-risk to the environment, Larsen said. “We try to develop products that replace more hazardous products.”

Larsen said Cesco has developed soybean-based solvents for oil cleanup which are far less environmentally harmful in both production and application.

Jeffrey A. Hegedus, an environmental health supervisor with the Whatcom County Health Department, said the production and use of soybean-based products is healthier for the community and makes sense for oil cleanup.

“The first thought that comes to mind, as a chemical engineer, is the old adage that ‘like cleans like,’” Hegedus said. “And soybean oil would be desirable because it’s readily biodegradable and it’s not toxic.”

Hegedus said that production of soybean-based products is preferable from an environmental standpoint compared to traditional, petroleum-based solvents such as acetone – often used as paint thinner for oil paints – or methyl ethyl ketone.

“Acetone, MEK, you know, these very light ends of the crude oil refining process, they’re dangerous because they’re ‘hot,’” Hegedus said. “They have low flash points so they could blow up. They (also) generate odors that are toxic and so when you’re working around it you have to be very careful, far more careful than if you’re extracting soybean oil.”

Hegedus also said that leaks and spills of highly refined petroleum products would require a hazardous waste cleanup operation, where soybean products likely would not.

“I think...it’s going to be way better for the community, because it’s not going to blow up, it’s not toxic and it’s not persistent in the ground,” Hegedus said.

Beyond soybean oil products, Larsen also said the company uses citrus-based products for detergents and other applications.

Before purchasing the company in 1992, Larsen was a sales representative for Cesco in the mid-1980s. He soon began making products custom fit to their clients’ applications and eventually led the company in a new direction, Larsen said. He said the company has grown consistently since he took over and expanded the application of their products.

Larsen said he will keep the main plant after the new facility is complete. The company also operates a plant in Baytown, Texas.

From backyard to barnstorm: Natural chicken feed company scratches its way to the top

Diana Ambauen-Meade, 54, says her chicken feed is healthier for chickens, and in turn, for people. Here, she sifts through a tub of finished feed, showing what her popular mash-style feed looks like.

It turns out, chickens are particular about what they eat – or at least that’s what Diana Ambauen-Meade said she believes and is one of the motivations behind her feed mill in Irongate.

Scratch and Peck Feeds is a small-scale feed mill, located at 3883 Hammer Drive, that uses only locally sourced grains and soy-free products to produce chicken, hog, turkey and goat feed. It is the first feed company in the U.S. to receive non-GMO status and will soon also receive official organic status.

Though the feed business is dominated by behemoth companies, Ambauen-Meade, 54, said she has cornered a growing niche market for feed made from whole grains and high-quality ingredients. Her company sold more than $1 million worth of feed last year. Scratch and Peck is also currently a finalist in Whatcom County for Outstanding Business Achievement as a start-up

A growing list of retailers around the northwest and beyond are carrying Scratch and Peck products; Ambauen-Meade said that her company is now the number one seller of chicken feed on Amazon.com.

Neil Montacre, co-owner of Naomi’s Organic Farm Supply in Portland, Ore., said he began carrying Scratch and Peck’s mash-style feed because his customers loved that type of feed and Scratch and Peck was able to deliver where another supplier couldn’t.

“We had a lot of demand for that mash-style feed because it smelled better and the chickens got really excited about it,” Montacre said. “We’re really happy to have it.”

Ambauen-Meade said she plans to build a silo at her current location as well as seek property for a larger feed mill. She said building to suit her business’ specific needs would streamline production and allow her to meet her goal of being the largest producer of locally sourced feed by 2018.

And it all started in her own backyard.

When Ambauen-Meade first started raising her own chickens in California during the late 1990s, neither her nor her chickens cared for the standard pellet-style feed available on the market, she said.

“You can’t really tell what’s in a pellet,” Ambauen-Meade said.

As an alternative, she chose to mix her own feed and continued to do so when raising chickens later in Washington. Her friends began asking for her feed and soon she decided to see if there was market for it.

“I bagged it up, I got a business license and I advertised it on Craigslist,” she said.

After six months of hand-delivering feed around the Seattle and Tacoma areas, Ambauen-Meade realized that she couldn’t handle the demand milling feed in her backyard and she contracted with a mill to do the work.

The mill, however, was in Oregon and there were high shipping costs with so much movement of the product, so she decided if she was going to continue, she would need her own mill.

“I decided that building a mill can’t be that difficult, people have done it for generations so it’s not rocket science,” Ambauen-Meade said. “So I just kind of started my own little feasibility study to figure out the cost and figuring out what to do...it was months of doing the discovery process on my own.”

Once she made up her mind that it could work, her husband Dennis Meade, 62, and son Bryon Meade – who had just finished a degree in business management from WWU in March 2010 – got on board with the project. Together, they decided to move from Bremerton to Bellingham to build the mill.

The trio found a building, bought some old equipment and began to set up the mill in May 2010. But it didn’t happen overnight.

“We were totally naive, we had no idea what went into it,” Ambauen-Meade said. “We thought we could just do it. It was a major learning process.”

However, once things got going, they went quickly, Ambauen-Meade said. The person they hired to do the fabrication work in the mill arrived by coincidence and helped bring the project together.

“He just randomly showed up in our lives. It was like he fell from the sky,” Ambauen-Meade said. “Then it was like: ‘We can’t not do this.’”

Ambauen-Meade said her motivation for producing a natural feed product stems from her understanding that people are affected by what their animals eat. Soy, in particular, has become a major allergen and its prevalence in most feeds can cause people to be allergic to eggs due to the high levels of soy the chickens ingest, she said.

Ambauen-Meade said she maintains the quality of her product by making connections with the local farms she buys from and visiting them to view their operations.

Her son, Bryon Meade, 26, said he also believes in producing a high-quality, natural product and the experience with Scratch and Peck has been fun, to say the least.

“My mom came to me with this idea and we just went for it,” Meade said. “We had no idea what we were in for but it’s been quite a ride.”

Though he initially did most of the production process, Meade has now backed off to mainly administrative and planning tasks as the business has grown.

“I left Alex (Ekins, 30, the mill production manager) to do that,” Meade said. “I like to think that I’m the all-around guy.”

Meade is currently looking at building the silo so they can store grain more efficiently and move it less. It is currently stored in large bags on shelves in the feed mill which require more work when unloading 30-ton trucks of grain and when moving it into the milling process.

Meade said he is looking at other ways to maximize the space they have for at least the next three years – the length of time they expect to stay in the Hammer Drive location.

“I’m kind of just trying to plan our future demand and meet that with what we’ve got,” Meade said.

Meade, a full partner in the business, said he plans to carry on once his parents retire.

“I’ve always wanted to run my own business and this has a lot of potential,” Meade said. “ And I don’t think my parents are going to want to run this 10 years down the road.”

Meade said he expects Scratch and Peck to continue to grow in the backyard chicken feed market in those 10 years.

“I see us here in Whatcom County still,” Meade said. “I see us at the lead of this market...at the national level, but still maintaining our core values. The top dogs, or chickens.”

Beyond the roughly 175 tons of feed Scratch and Peck is currently shipping out each month, the company also sells garden hoop kits – called “Hooplas” – which consist of hoops, clamps and plastic for setting up a 4-foot-by-8-foot greenhouse garden plot.