In 2024, the team at Stutsmans are celebrating 90 years in business. This achievement is notable for many reasons including its founding during The Great Depression, its consistent family-ownership, current multi-generational family leadership, and the evolving and consolidating ag retail industry.
“Eldon Stutsman founded the company during tough times for the whole country,” says Scott Stutsman, CEO. “He was trying to find a way to provide for his family and help his neighbors. One thing led to another which opened the opportunity to start the feed business.”
In 1934, Eldon Stutsman provided a milk route around Hills, Iowa. When neighbors asked him to bring supplies back from town, the company was born. Then thirty years after its founding, the agronomy division was sprouted by Ron Stutsman, the second generation of leadership, who serves as chairman of the board today.
Customer-Focused Growth
“Our business has expanded, and we’re proud of opportunities we’ve had to have long-term employees,” Scott says. “We’ve had several employees who have been here 50 years. And along the line, an employee would have raised their hand and want to be in charge of a product or service.”
Today, Stutsmans has eight divisions:
- Feed ingredients: selling and distributing more than 2,500 products
- Grain handling division: spanning bins, dryers, conveyors, and parts across multiple manufacturers.
- Agronomy: having grown from crop nutrients and custom application, company leaders say one thing has stayed consistent is being the trusted agronomic adviser.
- Manure equipment: started in the 1970s, now includes drag hoses, spreaders, pumps, parts and more.
- Stutsman Transportation: focuses on for-hire trucking specializing in dry van.
- Ag equipment and precision tech: spanning a diverse shortline lineup.
- Stutsman Logistics: maintaining the goal of providing reliable transportation solutions for carriers and companies alike.
- Wholesale hose and valve: offering custom cutting, fitting and assembly on top of hose, fittings and valve products.
“We have not ventured very far from our core in agriculture,” Scott says.
Being rooted in the industry driving their local communities has offered Stutsmans room for horizontal and vertical growth with a focus for success. The business has three locations in Iowa.
“Eldon was smart; he didn’t chase trends,” says Mark Stutsman, COO. “Being founded on service, his motto was emphasize serving your customer and sales will come naturally. We work hard everyday to show the value we add to a customer’s purchase—when many products are the same, it’s service that sets us apart with quality people, quality equipment and quality facilities.”
Carrying the Past Forward
One catalyst for the 90th anniversary celebration is to educate newer team members of the company history. Currently, the business has more than 300 employees.
“It’s a blessing to be involved in ag, raised in rural America, and doing business in our local communities surrounded by people passionate about ag,” Mark says. “For our longevity, it’s important to have the ability to attract really good people who have bought into our mission and vision of where we want to go.”
As touchpoints to the past and to illustrate leadership’s intention for longevity, the team at Stutsmans restored two vintage trucks similar to ones Eldon used in the 1950s along with a sprayer used during the early years of the agronomy department.
“This business is financially sound and secure with a number of fourth generation family members finding their way back into the business with productive roles,” Mark says. “And we have our chairman, Ron—my father, eager in how we can invest to grow the business. That attitude has allowed us to flourish.”
Five Future Trends and Challenges
Scott and Mark share what’s top of mind when they think about the company’s future.
1. Culture
“As our head count grows, the first concern is culture. We pride ourselves on our family company environment. We all work really hard on maintaining the family company values. Everyone has a voice. Everyone is important,” Mark says.
Scott adds the family values have carried into the business in how employees are encouraged to put their best foot forward with equal opportunities and accountability for all.
2. Long-term Success
“The future of our organization is driven by our fourth generation and younger employees we can attract,” Scott says. “When we talk about sustainability for the business it means we have to have the right people on board to be successful for the next 20, 30, 40 years.”
Mark adds the injection of young talent in the business has been energizing for him in how he thinks about the future and what’s possible for growth.
3. Consolidation across agriculture.
“It’s every aspect–row crop farmers, hog farmers, cattle farmers, and the whole industry continues to consolidate,” Scott says. “We have to pivot our services. For example, most of our agronomy customers may have been a 300 acre farmer 20 years ago, now they are 3,000 acres. So we have to align our services to provide for a range of needs and wants. And it’s an ongoing strategy–how do we continue to bring value to the customers.”
4. Tough farm economics.
“In the near term, we need to help our customers be profitable,” Scott says. “Our ProVantage cost tracker is one way we can help farmers understand their break evens on a farm by farm or field by field basis. This is our focus: Help our customers come out of the tough times profitable.”
5. Poised for new products
“You’ve got to keep looking down the road. My father had the opportunity to prove the value of nitrogen fertilizer. Then the value of herbicides. Then came along custom application,” Mark says. “Then our business had an opportunity to showcase yield monitors. And now yield monitors are in combines as standard equipment as is auto-steer.”
Mark says Stutsmans is focused to be there for their customers in the future in however that manifests itself in providing further value as the trusted advisor.
