FORT FAIRFIELD – A starch production plant that will produce up to 60,000 tons of food- and industrial-grade starch a year will go on line later this month.

“We will be the most modern starch factory in the world,” Linwood Winslow, manager at Aroostook Starch LLC, said Friday during a telephone interview. Netherlands-based Nivoba owns the company.

Located in the former AgriNortheast facility on Route 1A, Aroostook Starch will use an assortment of supply sources to make its starch, including residue from potato-processing plants, parts of raw potatoes that are left over from those processing operations, and off-grade and cull potatoes from farms.

The combined supply, Winslow said, would be equal to about 55 truckloads of potatoes a day.

He declined to name the processors who will provide raw material to Aroostook Starch, but he said they are located all over the Northeast and eastern Canada as far west as Toronto, Ontario.

The Fort Fairfield company will employ 45 people to make both industrial- and food-grade starches. Industrial starches are used to make plastics; by the pulp and paper industry to make paper; and for glue used in the manufacture of plywood. Food-grade starch is used as a coating on french fries and other food products.

Winslow said potatoes are better than corn or wheat for starch production and are preferred by companies that use starch in their manufacturing processes.

While Nivoba already has markets for its product in Europe, “we hope to make a competitive structure and really go after the pulp and paper market” in the United States, Winslow said.

Potato-starch factories were once common along rivers and streams in Aroostook County, relying exclusively on cull potatoes, which wasn’t always a reliable supply source.

“Most of them didn’t have adequate pollution-control systems,” added Winslow.

Eventually they were forced out of business because of competition from European manufacturers.

Nivoba was attracted to Aroostook County about four years ago as a manufacturer and supplier of the machinery that makes the starch. The company eventually decided to expand its entire starch manufacturing operation to Maine because of the availability of raw material.

The company has invested the equivalent of $8 million in U.S. funds to make the Fort Fairfield plant ready.

Winslow said Aroostook Starch would be able to help potato processors who must deal with waste from their operations and farmers who would otherwise have to dump their unusable potatoes.

“We provide a solution and a value for potato producers who are dealing with the waste as an added cost,” Winslow said. “We’ll take care of their solid waste and give them something for it.”

As for farmers, “the farming community here will be pleased with this installation,” said Winslow. “This should eliminate cull piles in Aroostook County.”

Winslow said the plant will begin startup operations by the end of the month, and it will be later in the spring by the time the manufacturing process is up to full speed.

He said storage facilities are not yet completed because of a three-month delay that occurred after last September’s terrorist attacks. He said it took longer for workers from Europe to get their visas to come to the United States.

“We should have significant capacity starting in the fall,” he said.