Hefty Seed Grand Opening @ VC Location
Think back to your favorite treat when you were a child, the earliest favorite food you can remember.
Was it something Grandma made, like her famous cookies, or did it come from the store, like Hersheys BarNone? Maybe regular Coke with Lime?
The problem with most of those early favorite foods is this: You can’t get them anymore. If Grandma’s gone, her recipe for cookies never seems to turn out the same when made by someone else. The food from a store, like BarNones or Coke with lime, can be discontinued and not available anymore either.
Other favorite foods may date back to the region you grew up in: Old Dutch potato chips are ubiquitous in our midwestern region. However, down in North Carolina, friends say they just aren’t available in stores.
That was the issue that Ron Hefty faced in 1969, the same year that Pontiac introduced their Firebird. Bring back any
memories?
Ron Hefty wasn’t worried about his favorite food in 1969, he was one of the producers of food: A farmer.
After farming with his parents in Iowa, the opportunity presented itself to purchase and take over his wife’s family farm in South Dakota. Different place, same potential problems, right?
Not quite. According to the company’s history, Mr. Hefty and his family dug right into farming in South Dakota, but ran into a snag when it was time to buy chemicals for his fields. He had three favorite herbicides, but only one of them was available in South Dakota. Mr. Hefty considered that one available herbicide to be extremely expensive, and he couldn’t find a South Dakota source for the other two at all.
The problem with the chemicals that Mr. Hefty ran into wasn’t like the issue facing Hershey’s BarNone aficionados, or Coke with Lime fanatics. The chemicals Mr. Hefty wanted to use were still available, they just weren’t available where he was living. So he had an Old Dutchtype problem.
And, like Old Dutch potato chip lovers in the south, Mr. Hefty sourced the chemicals he was looking for from where they were available: His native Iowa, bringing them northward to where he was farming in South Dakota. He also started selling them to his neighbors, and that was where Hefty Farm Supply began.
CropLife states that Mr. Hefty started to focus more on seed sales in 1984. No science fiction there, though- his company opened a seed cleaning center in Baltic, South Dakota that same year and changed the name of his business to the now well-known Hefty Seed Company.
A mere seven and nine years later, his two sons (Brian and Darren) respectively entered his booming business. That was when Hefty Seed Company began to add locations, which they are continuing to this day.
A store has just made its way all the way up to our treeless prairie, near Sanborn, North Dakota. The big building with the signature big red doors opened the first of January, 2021. If you would like a chance to see the new (big!) building, along with its spacious offices and friendly agronomists and staff, they are hosting an open house March 8-12, from eight AM to five PM. That leaves plenty of time to meet the agronomists and maybe discuss some new options this year: They sell Hefty Brand corn and soybean seed, as well as forage and cover crop seed. Agronomist Kody Amann laughed as I asked about cover crop seed, saying “I hope we don’t have to plant so many of those this year!” Mr. Amann hopes for a good spring for planting, followed by a good harvest.
Mr. Amann has ten years’ experience in agronomy, as well as growing up on a farm very near here. “I like helping farmers be profitable,” he says, smiling affably. Farmers like to be profitable too, so he’ll be a big help to our area farmers!
The new Hefty Seed Co. has one more agronomist, a young woman from a farming background in our own state of North Dakota, who went on to NDSU to earn a degree in Crop & Weed Sciences after enjoying her time competing in the FFA Crops Judging contest. Her name is Chantel Mertz, and she smiles confidently as she says “Agriculture is my passion.” Miss Mertz enthusiastically looks forward to serving our community.
Additional team members currently on staff include Alicia Hoffarth, program development manager and Macey Ziesch, office coordinator. Wayne Peter, warehouse manager will also be joining the group in mid-March and additional agronomists will be hired in the future.
And Valley City’s new Hefty Seed Company location has many individual programs: They will be selling a full, expanded line of crop protection products like fungicides, herbicides, and insecticides alongside Hefty Brand seed. As far as crop protection, they’ve got you covered: Hefty Seed Co. is number 8 in the list of top US retailers. And they’re number 9 in US seed retailing.
Hefty Seed is one of a kind, though, because it isn’t their goal to sell seed. The company is tops nationwide for both agronomic recommendations and in training agronomists. That fits right in with their goal, which is to help make farmers more profitable. Some of their other goals include assisting farmers to make decisions about improving their land and therefore the environment with better agronomic practices.
CEO Brian Hefty clarified his business strategy by saying this: “We farm too, and we know it’s difficult to make it on the farm. We’re always trying to figure out ways to help you improve your yields and earn more money so you can not just survive, but thrive.”
Thriving on our little slice of prairie heaven sounds fantastic to area farmers. The view from the new Hefty Seed Company store is pastoral, a terrific birdwatching spot that got me past the required number of birds in Dr. Anderson’s famously difficult ornithology class (but it was fantastic, absolutely packed with incredible bird knowledge and I enjoyed every second of it. Really, I did, professor!).
Even if you’re there to buy seed or crop protection products instead of watch the birds across the road, Hefty Seed Company has what you need and friendly staff to help you find it. But Dr. Anderson would tell you that there’s always time to stop and watch the birds- and maybe that contributes to thriving in our little patch of the prairie.
Come join the Hefty Seed company staff for a time during their open house March 8-12, from 8-5. And don’t worry about bringing an extra smile- they’ll have one for you.