COASTAL GROWERS HOLD RIBBON CUTTING

The new shelling plant will serve as the epicenter for peanut processing in South Alabama

By Abby Himburg Richardson

In 15 months, Costal Growers broke ground and opened a brand-new state-of-the-art peanut shelling facility in Atmore, Ala. On Wednesday Feb. 23, 2022, Coastal Growers LLC offi cials, employees and local and state dignitaries celebrated the grand opening of the shelling facility with a ribbon cutting ceremony.

This facility, situated on 60 acres, includes the 65,000-square-foot shelling facility, warehouses and cold storage units. The plant is an $87 million invest but will serve as the epicenter for peanut processing in south Alabama. It can shell 25 tons of peanuts an hour and produces seven products – including three sizes of edible peanuts, peanuts for wildlife, oil stock and ground peanut hulls, which are sold and transformed into pellets for fuel overseas. Peanuts from the facility are shipped to 11 countries on three different continents. They currently employee 64 full time employees but plan to have over 100 by next year. "Costal Growers is growing," says says Dirk Lindsey, president and CEO of Coastal Growers LLC. "Peanuts from here are already in or will be soon in a lot of the products you eat on a daily basis.”

Coastal Growers currently has nine buying points throughout Alabama and Georgia. Since their creation last year, they have added an existing shelling plant in Tifton, Georgia. It is owned by 195 farm families across Mississippi, Florida, Georgia and Alabama.

“This is America – what’s happened here in such a short amount of time,” says U.S. Senator Tommy Tuberville, R-Alabama, who attended the ribbon-cutting. “This is going to help so many people have an easier way of making a living. That’s what it’s all about. You couldn’t do this anywhere else in the world other than the United States of America.”

To help move product, railroad tracks are being laid to reach the plant. Future plans could also include a seed cleaner. "This is going to be the best thing to happen to farmers in this area that participate in it. The benefi t we will get back from it is going to be huge,” says Darrin Driskell, board member of both Costal Growers and Alabama Peanut Producers Association. 

“Coastal Growers is growing. Peanuts from here are already in or will be soon in a lot of the products you eat on a daily basis.”

Dirk Lindsey President/CEO Coastal Growers LLC

Paul Pinyan, Alabama Farmers Federation executive director; Mark Kaiser, Alabama Peanut Producers Association board member; Jimmy Parnell, Alabama Farmers Federation president; Anthony Daniels, director of operations at Coastal Growers, and Jacob Davis, Alabama Peanut Producers Association executive director, participate in the grand opening celebration at Coastal Growers LLC, Feb. 23, 2022, in Atmore, Ala.

Dirk Lindsey, president and CEO of Coastal Growers (holding scissors), cuts the ribbon during the celebration. Many employees, local and state dignitaries joined in on the celebration held Feb. 23, 2022, in Atmore, Ala.