After heading over to Tara Foods, we paid a little visit to Birdsong Peanuts, a shelling plant in Albany. Birdsong Peanuts started as a storage company in 1911. The company shells raw peanuts and markets them to customers throughout the world. They have plants in Georgia, Texas, Virginia, and supply manufacturers domestically and internationally. Remember the buying point blog from yesterday? The peanuts go from the field, to the buying point, to the shelling plant. It all ties in together. Once they get to the shelling plant they are sent through again based on type (runner), graded, cleaned all foreign materials, then bagged for storage to be sent off to manufacturers. At Birdsong they are just now getting through the 2011 crop and will begin shelling the 2012 soon. This year there are enough peanuts to go around! If you get a chance to take a tour of a local shelling plant, please do so. It’s worth the trip!
