Dateline: October 2, 2003

Greenbelt Peanut opens Clarendon facility

By Roger Estlack, Clarendon Enterprise

A new $500,000 peanut processing facility came online last week with producers bringing in the first loads from the 2003 harvest.

Greenbelt Peanuts, which is owned by the Clint Williams Company, began operations Thursday at its 45-acre location at the end of Ayers Street just outside the northeast city limits of Clarendon. Landon Shields brought the first crop to the Clarendon facility.

The new facility is used to dry, handle, and grade peanuts on large semi-trailers using high capacity loading and unloading systems.

 “We will be running a 24-hour crew, and we hope to be unloading a semi load every 20 minutes,” said Tony Maxwell, who manages the Greenbelt plant and its sister plant in Quail.

As peanuts come in, they are weighed, moved to a shaker that sifts out most of the dirt, and then put into one of Greenbelt’s 28 modified semi-trailers, which are then connected to one of 20 forced-air dryers. The amount of time needed to dry each load will depend on the condition of the peanuts and the weather.

“These 20 dryers will run all the time,” Maxwell said. “They are newer and quieter than the ones at Quail.”

After the peanuts are dried, they are moved to another part of the facility where probes take 15 samples from each load. A USDA official oversees this part of the operation as the peanuts are graded and a price is fixed to them.

Greenbelt is expected to employ 10 to 15 people during the harvest season and will be managed from the company’s facility in Quail.

Farmers in Donley County should see significant savings by the availability of the Clarendon facility. Previously they had no option but to haul their peanuts to either Quail or Memphis. Producers were losing travel time and having to pay some $200 per truckload to go to Quail.

It’s too early to know much about the 2003 harvest, but Maxwell says, “We’re looking at an average or slightly better than average season.”

The Clint Williams Company, a division of Texhoma Peanut Company, is based in Madill, Okla., and has been in operation since 1968. In addition to the Greenbelt plant and the Quail plant, which opened in 1989, the company currently operates eight other buying points.