SIOUX CITY | Restoration of a century-old building brings with it some surprises and sometimes a few delays, but Mark Schuett is happy with what he's found at the former Sioux Tools plant.
He'll be even happier later this year, when he hopes his company, American Natural Processors Inc., will begin operations at the former manufacturing plant at 2901 Floyd Blvd.
Schuett bought the building in 2015 with plans to turn it into a processing, packaging, distributing and warehousing facility for American Natural Processors Inc., one of the nation's largest processors of organic ingredients.
Schuett declined to put a dollar figure on the work done on the building, but it's been a substantial investment, he said. Work has been ongoing for more than a year. Workers stripped the building to the bare bones, replaced windows and roofs. Concrete floors are still being repaired. Rewiring is about 75 percent complete as is relighting.
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"It's taken a little longer than what I had hoped for," Schuett said. "We want to do it right. Sometimes you have to invest a little more than you planned to make it last another 100 years."
The former Sioux Tools plant traces its roots to 1914, when Oscar Albertson and Harold Jacobson opened Albertson & Co. The plant started by making piston rings and spark plugs and later expanded its product line, introducing a line of air-powered tools in the 1950s.
By the 1960s, the company had changed its name to Sioux Tools. In 1994, the factory became a division of Kenosha, Wisconsin-based Snap-On Tools, which closed the plant in 2002.
Most recently, the building served as an auxiliary warehouse for Bomgaars Supply, which moved out in 2015 after expanding its main warehouse and distribution center at 1805 Zenith Drive.
Schuett said American Natural Processors will use the Floyd Boulevard site mainly for warehousing and production. The company's research and development division also will be moved here from Cherokee, Iowa. The company will continue to operate its plant in Cherokee, as well as facilities in Galva, Iowa, and Hartley, Iowa.
Once completed and fully operational, Schuett said the Sioux City plant should create 20-25 jobs.
Schuett founded American Natural Processors in 2000 with his wife, Julie. Daughter Nicole, a scientist, and her husband, Sam Jennett, an engineer, have since joined the family-owned operation. The plants craft organic oilseeds into meals, flours and oils, without the use of chemicals or preservatives. The company processes ingredients that include soy, corn, canola, flax, rice, hemp, chia, peas and algae.
Cleaning and de-oiling of grain and oil refining will be done at the company's three other sites. Oil and other products will be transported to Sioux City for final processing and packaging.
By late summer or early fall, the Sioux City plant could begin its first operations, likely liquid product packaging. The Sioux City plant will allow the company to package its oils in smaller quantities. Currently, the smallest containers the company fills are 55-gallon drums. The new plant will allow packaging of smaller jugs that are sold to restaurants, opening up new marketing possibilities in an industry that continues to grow.
American Natural processes most of the organic grain grown in this area, Schuett said, but also handles grain imported from other areas of the country and overseas because the demand for organic products in the United States exceeds what's produced here. Schuett said his plants continue to break production records to keep up with that demand.
"The demand continues to go up on the organic food," he said. "We just keep expanding with it."
The company processes products used as ingredients contained in foods that can be found in organic grocery stores such as Whole Foods and in Hy-Vee's organic food sections. It also produces meal that is used in livestock and poultry feed.
