United Pulse Trading held a grand opening for its Williston pea and lentil processing plant in July. It is seeking the Flex PACE loan and Star Fund dollars for a proposed expansion to its facility.
Economic Development director Tom Rolfstad said the request is for a Flex PACE loan of $2.6 million from First National Bank. The Star Fund interest buydown portion of the request is for $116,000.
Commissioners unanimously approved the request unanimously with Commissioner Brent Bogar not in attendance.
United Pulse Trading general manager Eric Bartsch told commissioners the money would allow for an expansion to greatly increase its capacity. The 36,000 square-foot addition to its warehouse space represents a massive increase over its current 5,000 square feet of space.
"We see this as a great opportunity. We currently process and send out about 280 tons of peas and lentils per day. This would allow us to increase that to at least 550 tons per day," said Bartsch.
Bartsch cited the increased demand for pulse crops allows farmers to increasingly plant crops in their rotations over fallow crops. He said about 1 million acres of fallow land is now being used for pulse crops.
"About 65 to 70 percent of that is within 100 miles of Williston," said Bartsch.
He added Williston is the center of its United States operations and its interest from large buyers from the East and West coasts is steadily increasing.
Bartsch also said it now has 40 full-time employees. Mayor Ward Koeser said the city of Williston is vigorously working to diversify its economy and companies such as United Pulse Trading are very appealing to him.
"It definitely fits in with our long-term plans to do that," said Koeser.
Rolfstad agreed in saying it not only helps achieve that end, but also puts more money into the pockets of area farmers.
"To me, whenever you can get an employer that hires up to 40 in a field that isn't oil that's also a huge bonus," said Rolfstad.
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