From cosmetics to Cheetos, cotton seed oil production remains a strong industry
Greenwoods PYCO remains the largest producer in the state and sees world record production of cotton seed as a true growth indicator for this sector

BY Brad Riles
DBJ Contributing Writer

When people think of the Mississippi Delta, a majority of the time cotton comes to mind. So it is only fitting that it would be one of the leading agricultural forces in the Delta.

PYCO Industries, a Greenwood-based cottonseed oil mill, has been atop the cotton industry in the Mississippi area for nearly five years, as distributors of products derived from the cottonseed itself.

With two other plants in Texas, PYCO is the largest cottonseed oil mill in the state, as well the southern United States, with over 120 member gins and around 100 employees at the Greenwood location, according to Billy Breedlove, Mid-South Manager.

The actual mill opened around 1900, but was later sold by Procter and Gamble. In 1957, a group of farmers purchased the mill and it became Yazoo Valley Oil Mill, making it a co-op, Breedlove said.

“On October 1, 1999, Yazoo Valley Oil Mill merged with Plains Cooperative Oil Mill out of Texas to form PYCO,” said Breedlove and added that PYCO is short for Plains Yazoo Cotton Oil.

“This year we are going to have a record year in cotton and cottonseed production,” he said. “There is going to be 8.2 million tons of cottonseed produced in the United States.”

Couple that with there only being 13 cottonseed oil mills in the United States, which means PYCO can expect a lot of traffic in the near future.

One of the major products PYCO has seen an increasing number of is cottonseed oil.

“That is our most valuable product,” he said. “It is used as cooking oil for the snack food industry. Companies that buy it are like Frito-Lay and Procter and Gamble.

“The thing about is it is considered a premium vegetable oil because it has a long shelf life. It has a mild taste to it so if you were a person who is cooking you would like the cottonseed oil because it has no taste. It’s also used for marinades and dressings, as well as being used in the pharmaceutical and cosmetic industry.

In today’s health-crazed world, where people read nutritional facts more than books, the focus has turned towards eliminating fatty acids, in particular trans fat.

Cottonseed oil is extremely low in trans fat, according to Breedlove, which is good for future products.

“For the year 2006, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration is going to require food labels to reveal the trans fatty acid content,” he said.

“We are very optimistic about the cottonseed oil and the low trans fatty acids,” he added. “We think it is going to carry our product into the future.”

Most known for its use in clothing, cotton or cottonseed, is also used for a variety of products that are quite interesting and thought provoking.

Linters, left on the cottonseed after gins remove the actual cotton, are used for an array of products that would make it a prime topic in a Trivial Pursuit question.

“It has numerous products it goes into,” Breedlove said. “It’s in the paper industry, yarns, and used as a thickener in lacquers, paint, toothpaste and ice cream. It’s also used in solid rocket propellants and in gunpowder.”

Other uses for linters come in the manufacturing of mattresses, upholstery padding and high quality plastics.

The cottonseed hulls are even instrumental to the agricultural industry as they are used for bulk an animal rations for the cattle industry.

According to Breedlove, the cottonseed hulls are used as an absorbent and provide an excellent form of fiber in beef and dairy cattle rations.

Another product is the cottonseed mill, which “is a high-protein feed for cattle and the catfish industry,” Breedlove said.

“Probably about 60-65 percent of all cottonseed produced goes to the dairy cow industry to feed cows with it,” he added.

Breedlove said PYCO only helps the agricultural community as all money earned from cottonseed goes back into their member gins, which in turn are received by the growers.

“We like to consider cottonseed here in a cooperative system as just net value to that product,” Breedlove said. DBJ