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King’s AgriSeeds 25th birthday will be spent in a new home. “We have come a long way in the last 25 years - what a journey it has been!” says Tim Fritz, President. “When I first started working at King’s in 2002, as the forage agronomist, we were based out of a small, one room office with the warehouse being only the 2nd floor of a small barn. Our service area was a 150 mile radius, our product line was mostly grasses, and Masters Choice was just being introduced as a livestock corn at King’s AgriSeeds.”

To support this growth, King’s AgriSeeds found a new home late in 2017. The newly renovated facility located in Lancaster’s Greenfield Industrial Park features over 70,000 square feet of warehouse space, a 60% increase from the space previously occupied in Ronks, an improved bagging line, a new, larger, climate controlled cold room, five docks, expanded office area and a training center.

“Ideally, we'll be able to have a lot more product on-hand in our warehouse at one time,” said Ashley Umble, Customer Relations and Dealer Training Coordinator. “So hopefully we will be able to be much more efficient in serving our dealers and customers! With the added space for inventory, we should be able ship more complete orders out in one shot during the crazy spring shipping season, rather than lacking certain product when our dealers want to receive their order.” Office staff members are also eager for new conference room space that can also be used for all-staff meetings as well as small group dealer training sessions. A bigger research lab will be an added benefit for processing samples from the field, where product testing is always underway.

General Manager Mike Moyer is enthused about what the new space means for expanded capabilities. “The new warehouse gives us the opportunity to take our customer service to a whole new level,” he said. “We will be able to reduce the number of times we have to handle inventory. The additional space will allow us to store product, stage product, and load directly onto the LTL trucks during the peak seasons.” Additional capacity will also mean the ability to perform more extensive quality and consistency control checks.

As King’s grows into its new facility, staff members reflect on what makes the company successful. “I'd like to think our growth has to do with the fact that not only do we offer a high-end, quality product-line, but we have a great set of dealers out selling and promoting that product, as well as knowledgeable staff to back them up as a support,” said Ms. Umble. “I always like hearing that we're doing a good job doing what we're doing and that people have confidence in us for having good, honest answers and solutions to their various scenarios. I think it's important for our dealers and customers to know that even though we're growing and moving to a new location, we're still the same King's AgriSeeds people have come to know and love.”

Mr. Moyer, new to the company in 2017, said “Working in the agriculture industry energizes me to want to learn more. I love being involved in learning new techniques that help farms succeed. I love the challenges of working together to find new ways to make our company easier to do business with. I enjoy working with passionate people who build trust, focused on the long term relationships. My favorite story came from a grazing conference where an attendee told me that he bought from King’s AgriSeeds because our dealer took the time to walk his fields with him. He told me that other dealers offered cheaper prices, but he went with King’s because he believed we understood his operation and his objectives. The products we recommended had excellent performance.”