A far to common problem.....

Profile Industries has been at the forefront of soybean processing for many years. This story takes us back to 2017. Ray Hurt, a fifth-generation owner of Hurt Seed, founded in 1932 in Halls, TN, reached out to Profile Industries to address a common issue in the soybean seed conditioning industry

The Challenge: Addressing Seed Cleaning Inefficiency

Ray was looking at Profile Industries Rotary Spirals online when he reached out and shared how he had taken out his static spirals when he installed his color sorter at his facility. A common trend in the industry is going this way. Ray expressed to us that

"on certain bins of beans we overload the sorters between color and shape rejects."

He highlighted a challenge many in the soybean seed cleaning industry are grappling with today: inefficiency and significant loss of good product when using spirals. To address this, he proposed replacing the spirals with an optical sorter. However, what was overlooked is that this change would lead to poor-quality seeds and additional foreign material being sent to the optical sorter—issues that could have been mitigated by incorporating mechanical sorting equipment ahead of the optical sorter. By doing so, the optical sorter could focus on the finer, more complex sorting tasks that mechanical technology alone cannot handle.

The Solution: Powered Spiral Technology

Ray decided to put in a system of our Powered Spirals after running some of his own soybeans at our lab in Rogers, MN.

After that it was a quick to decision to get these operational for his seed tower. He worked closely with Steve DeJong, owner of Profile Industries to get everything he needed to have them up and running for Soybean Harvest in 2017.

Due to the nature of this plant Hurt only had so much height to work with so adding a leveling auger was a great addition to the sorters, allowing for easy feeding making sure each machine is getting utilized.

The Results: Improved Efficiency and Reduced Waste

“We have achieved a lot more profitability with them. Our loss is minimal, we’re putting more good seed in the bag”

Now Hurt has ran million of units over the powered spirals throughout the years. In 2019, Hurt Seed Company expanded their capacity with an additional cleaning line that once again featured five of Profile Industries Powered Spirals.

"It's a vital piece of what we do, I wish we had powered spirals two or three yeas ago. We would have saved bins full of seed" - Ray Hurt, Owner, Hurt Seed Company

If you would like to learn more about how our Powered Spirals can assist in removing bottlenecks, reducing waste, and improving quality feel free to reach out to us to schedule a demo at your plant!

Check out this 2024 report on seed processing with powered spiral: 2024 Soybean Processing Report