Country View Family Farms Builds Pennsylvania's Largest Grain Bin to Prepare for Greater Feed Production
Country View Family Farms’ White Deer, PA feed mill built an 817,000-bushel Sukup steel bin in 2025. The facility receives roughly 200,000 bushels of corn per week by rail.
For 16 years, hog integrator Country View Family Farms (CVFF) purchased all its feed from commercial producers to feed the millions of hogs and thousands of sows it raises and manages annually.
But the Pennsylvania-based company, a wholly owned subsidiary of Clemens Food Group, Hatfield, PA, wanted to produce its own feed to have more control over nutritional formulations and to improve the efficiency and economics of its integrator model. So in 2019, it acquired a feed mill in Hagerstown, IN. After some renovations and upgrades, it produces 7,500 tpw of pig feed today.
In the fall of 2024, the company finished construction on its first feed mill – located on 100-plus acres near the White Deer Township in Union County, PA – to produce enough feed for all of its 300-plus family farm members that raise pigs for CVFF. The hogs are eventually sold to Clemens Food Group.
The $47.3 million White Deer feed mill has operated since November 2024. Weekly, it receives 200,000 bushels of corn by rail from the Midwest; the facility’s loop track can hold 105-car unit trains. Roughly 150 tons of soybean meal is delivered by truck or rail.
Production has been humming along for a year at approximately 8,500 tpw. However, according to Dr. Charles Stark, vice president of feed operations, CVFF isn’t stopping there.
Two-Phase Expansion
“This year,” Stark tells Grain Journal, “we completed the first phase of a mill expansion. Our goal is to increase production to 9,500 tpw. The first phase of that was a storage and handling project.”
To manage both phases, CVFF solicited bids before hiring GroffJulius, York, PA, as general contractor. “They had the most favorable bid, and we like that they’re local,” explains Stark, who joined CVFF in August 2024 after serving as a professor of feed production at Kansas State University, Manhattan. In his role at CVFF, he oversees the company’s two feed mills, manages ingredient procurement, and runs its nutrition program.
To increase production capacity at White Deer, the facility needed significantly more grain storage. (The original build saw the construction of five concrete silos for a combined storage capacity of 787,000 bushels.)
In 2025, CVFF built Pennsylvania’s largest grain bin by capacity. The 817,000-bushel Sukup corrugated steel, outside-stiffened bin measures 105 feet in diameter, 103 feet at the eave, and 131.5 feet at the peak.
The bin is equipped with six Sukup 30-hp centrifugal fans – and 11 2-hp roof exhausters – to provide 0.1 cfm per bushel of aeration for corn. A SafeGrain 24-cable grain monitoring system digitally tracks temperature, moisture, and carbon dioxide inside the bin.
The bin ties into the facility’s existing receiving system via a 6,500-bph Sukup drag conveyor. The fill conveyor is equipped with an Aircon dust collector that sends fugitive grain dust to the mill’s existing baghouse.
Despite it being the state’s largest bin, a special foundation was not needed. However, GroffJulius had to ensure the bin’s foundation would not interfere with the feed mill, which was built on auger-cast pilings. The bin is separate from, but closely adjacent to, the feed mill.
Also part of the Phase 1 project was the addition of the facility’s first grain dryer, a 4,700-bph natural-gas-fired Sukup tower dryer. Corn to be dried is held in a new Sukup wet bin.
The grain system is fully controlled through the feed mill’s CPM Beta Raven mill automation system.
Stark has been extremely pleased with the storage and drying project thus far. “GroffJulius has done a good job for us, and we’re glad they’re handling the next phase of the project.”
Phase 2, he says, is the addition of a roller mill to allow CVFF White Deer to produce mash feed. Presently, it only produces pellets.
Construction on Phase 2 began in November 2025 and is expected to be completed within three months.
