The Louis Dreyfus Co. began operations Sept. 30 at the Burns Harbor grain terminal.
In June 2025, the Ports of Indiana selected the global grain processing company to reopen the facility at Burns Harbor.
The terminal processed more than 500 million bushels of corn and soybeans between 1979 and 2023, when the facility closed. Cargill was the previous operator. The Ports of Indiana financed the construction of the facility in 1979.
“Combining LDC’s extensive resources with one of the most robust grain export facilities on the Great Lakes provides critical access to global markets for regional farmers,” said Ports of Indiana CEO Jody Peacock in a June press release. “This is one of only a few places in the Midwest where you can load 1 million bushels of corn onto an ocean vessel for export while simultaneously unloading an 85-car unit train and hundreds of semi-trucks.”
Northern Indiana farmers produce 160 million bushels of corn and soybean each year, according to the State of Indiana and the U.S. Department of Agriculture. Some rely on the Keystone Cooperative, which has locations in northern Indiana, to store and market their crops. But the Burns Harbor port will offer access to the Great Lakes, St. Lawrence Seaway and rivers.
LDC is one of the world's four largest grain processing companies. Its sales topped $50 billion in 2024. It also operates a soybean crushing and biodiesel plant in Claypool.
“Burns Harbor is well-positioned at the southern shore of Lake Michigan, with access to multiple regional grain markets,” said Gordon Russell, LDC’s U.S. head of grains and oil seeds. “The port will be a strategic asset for LDC to expand market access for regional farmers and serve customers in North America and abroad.”
The Burns Harbor terminal has the capacity to store 7.2 million bushels of grain, and transport it on 200 railcars and 20 barges. Eleven people are employed there.
More than 3,400 northern Indiana farm operations across Lake, Porter, La Porte, St. Joseph, Newton, Jasper, Pulaski and Starke counties produce more than $2 billion in farm products on more than 1 million acres each season, according to a Northwest Indiana Business Magazine story earlier this year.
Louis Dreyfus Co., which was founded in France in 1851, processes and transports about 95 million tons of agriculture products each year in more than 100 countries. The company employs more than 20,000 people worldwide.
