SIC 2075 Soybean Oil Mills

Contenidos

• NAICS CODE(S).
• FURTHER READING.

SIC 2075

This category covers establishments primarily engaged in manufacturing soybean oil, cake, and meal, and soybean protein isolates and concentrates, or in processing purchased soybean oil into forms other than edible cooking oils. Businesses primarily engaged in refining soybean oil into edible cooking oils are classified in SIC 2079: Shortening, Table Oils, Margarine, and Other Edible Fats and Oils, Not Elsewhere Classified.

NAICS CODE(S)

311222

Soybean Processing

311225

Fats and Oils Refining and Blending

Traditionally one of the largest U.S. crops, soybeans are especially valuable because the same automated presses yield two important products with closely linked markets—soybean oil and soybean meal. Unfavorable weather conditions hindered soybean production in the United States in the 2002-2003 and 2003-2004 (October to September) growing seasons, when the U.S. share of global soybean production fell to a record low of 36 percent. With 85.48 million metric tons harvested in 2004-2005, the United States' share of the world soybean harvest (213.35 million metric tons), climbed back to 40 percent.

Uses for soybeans have evolved and expanded over the past 50 years. In the 1950s and 1960s, meat processing using soy flour as protein filler was the largest food market for soybean meal. As this process became outmoded, improved refining techniques yielded isolated soy proteins and concentrates having a wider range of applications and little or no independent flavor. Those ingredients grew in popularity after legislation freed meat product manufacturers from regulations that insisted on prominent package labeling of the presence of such ingredients. In the 1970s and 1980s, increasing desirability of high-protein animal feeds, and soy's enhanced status as a healthy ingredient in food, led to increased demand for meal. Soybean meal and oil production volume increased proportionally.

U.S. production of soybeans totaled 3.08 billion bushels in 2005, following a record 3.10 billion bushels in 2004. Production had ranged from 2.65 to 2.80 billion bushels annually from 1997 to 2002 before unfavorable weather contributed to the 2.45 billion bushel yield of 2003. That year, the average price per bushel soared to $7.94 and the value of production topped $18 billion. The average price per bushel in 2004 was $5.74, and in 2005 it was $5.50.

While many competing fats and oils experienced slow growth...