High Tech Composting

Last fall, Mathias Miller and Brad Matuska, founders of Mississippi Topsoils, opened a $500,000 high-tech compost facility next to the Gold’n Plump Poultry plant in Cold Spring. They meet the plant’s disposal need with an environmentally sound waste service while manufacturing premium horticultural products.

Gold’n Plump Poultry is one of the largest integrated chicken producers in the Midwest. The St. Cloud-based company, a recipient of the Central States Industrial Achievement Award for excellence in environmental protection, “has a history of sound environmental practices,” Brad observes. Gold’n Plump welcomed an alternative to land-spreading wastewater solids, says the company’s environmental services manager Clay Watson. Spreading waste on cropland “brings with it a number of potential issues — runoff, odor, high transportation costs, crop limitations, specific farmer needs and road restrictions.”

Composting biosolids is about 10 percent cheaper than land spreading, Clay says. More important, “We think biosolids composting is the environmentally right thing to do.” Gold’n Plump sends Mississippi Topsoils about 100,000 pounds of biosolids a week. The company composts it with residential yard waste, sawdust, pallets and clean scrap wood, most of which used to end up in landfills or incinerators.

Mississippi Topsoils cofounder Brad Matuska, 28, is a passionate advocate for composting, which he considers a hallmark of environmental stewardship. After earning a degree in biology, Matuska spent several years selling compost equipment all over the world.

French (Composting) Connection

“Compost” comes from an Old French word for stew — and that’s essentially what composting is. At Mississippi Topsoils, waste is “stewed” in huge covered containers. Dried poultry processing solids are combined with wood chips, leaves and grass, then sealed in 20-ton bins. The mixture cooks for about four weeks as heat and beneficial bacteria transform the waste into clean, odorless humus. The same thing occurs in a backyard compost pile. But at Mississippi Topsoils, composting is high-tech. Computers control the entire process, mixing waste materials, maintaining optimum temperatures within the sealed bins, recycling leachate or “compost tea” and channeling exhaust through biological odor scrubbers. What comes out of the bins looks like good black dirt.

The heat of decomposition destroys pathogens and weed seeds, creating a medium rich in plant nutrients and organic matter. The compost cures on the ground in steaming heaps for a few more weeks. When mushrooms begin to sprout, it’s ready to support plant life. Mississippi Topsoils processes mature compost into a half- dozen products, including:

• tree mulch
• garden fertilizer
• lawn top dressing

The company also makes blended compost products such as potting soil. They designed their product line and marketing strategy with help from the Agricultural Utilization Research Institute (AURI) and the Small Business Development Center in Brainerd. “We’re listening to customers,” Brad says, “designing our products for specific uses and offering customer service,” including delivery.

Premium Minnesota Product

This year, Mississippi Topsoils will manufacture about 5,000 cubic yards of premium compost, which it markets to central Minnesota fruit and vegetable growers, nurseries, greenhouses and landscapers.

Healthy soil, healthy plants, healthy people — these are the values that guide Mississippi Topsoils, Brad says. “When you have kids, you try to figure out what kind of world they are going to inherit. I could go on for hours about why composting matters. But as Math says, it just makes sense.”