The 70,000-square-foot facility is two years in the making, as it first was announced in early May 2023 that the company would building a pet-food product facility in Tonganoxie.

Lance Collard, senior plant manager at the Tonganoxie facility at 17172 222nd St., discussed the tours in an email.

“We recently had the pleasure of hosting both morning and afternoon tours at our new pet premix plant in Tonganoxie,” Collard wrote. “The event was a great success — we enjoyed connecting with our customers and local city officials. It was a great opportunity to showcase the innovations and capabilities of the new facility.

“There were many valuable conversations throughout the day, and the feedback we received was overwhelmingly positive.”

DSM is a global company with headquarters in The Netherlands and several locations across the United States. The Tonganoxie facility is a nutritional premix plant for pet foods.

The new location will supply the pet food industry with nutritional premixes that are added to branded pet food products worldwide.

The facility sits on nearly 13 acres near 222nd Street and Kansas Avenue.

Kansas Gov. Laura Kelly praised the plans for Tonganoxie in the northeast region of the state when the facility originally was announced.

“DSM is a welcome addition to Kansas and the Animal Health Corridor,” Kelly said in 2023. “Having another industry leader locate here further enhances the globally recognized animal health ecosystem that is anchored in Kansas.”

The facility will be strategically located in the KC Animal Health Corridor, close to many of the industry-leading pet food manufacturers, reducing supply chain risk and logistics expense.

DSM is the third tenant in the business park: Unilock and Hill’s Pet Nutrition are the other tenants. Unilock, which makes concrete pavers, became the park’s first tenant in 2019. HIll’s is the largest tenant, as it operates a 300,000 square-foot facility.

The Tonganoxie DSM facility feature precision micro-batching capability, allowing for precise automated micro-addition of numerous ingredients to premixes in a fully traceable manner. This will support the use of a broader range of DSM and third-party ingredients, allowing the company to create more inclusive and unique premix offerings to meet the evolving needs of the pet food industry.

DSM was established in 1902 by the Dutch government as Dutch State Mines. DSM originally mined coal, but its last coal mine closed in the early 1970s, according to the company’s website.

In recent decades, the company has focused on creating science-based health and nutrition solutions.

Tonganoxie City Manager George Brajkovic and Assistant City Manager Dan Porter, along with Council Members Loralee Stevens and Chris Donnelly were among local officials who took a tour.