Continuously serving Kosciusko County since 1854
MILFORD - Though the egg itself cannot be reinvented, Creighton Brothers President Ron Truex stressed to the Kosciusko Leadership Academy the importance of business change and improvement within the company and any company hoping to find continued success.
During the KLA meeting Tuesday morning at Chore-Time Equipment, Milford, Truex presented the evolution of his company's egg products, ranging from the traditional plastic foam dozen pack to the bags of eggshells the company currently sells to surface horse arena tracks around the country.
"We've been through 80 years of nothing but change," Truex said. "If you don't continually change your business, then you're out of business. It's that simple."
After showing students a marketing video of Creighton Brothers, Truex displayed the company's products and discussed the continuous modifications its goods have undergone to better serve customers.
Frozen, liquefied, bagged, sliced, scrambled or skinned - over the years the company altered its product to adjust for numerous variables that arose in its market.
"We've simply survived through adapting our product," Truex said. "And we'll always continue to do so."
Also discussed was the significance of technology in agricultural businesses. Truex said machinery greatly improves the productivity of Creighton Brothers output while decreasing overhead costs.
"It's one of the hardest parts of the business. We find ways to up productivity and hire only a few additional employees.," Truex said. "It's just a matter of efficiency and cost management. Agriculture has become much more capital-intensive and less labor-intensive "
Chuck Klippel, Chore-Time Brock general manager, further informed KLA students about agricultural equipment and technology by showing various machinery products CTB provides to farming corporations.
CTB, which began in 1952, supplies agricultural companies with equipment to provide adequate and effective environments for livestock and grain production.
Klippel displayed examples of poultry and hog storage units as well as machinery used to house chickens for egg production. He described the importance of creating a low-stress atmosphere for animals while minimizing disease and maximizing productivity.
"Our machinery must always run at optimal levels for a farmer. If we can help maintain or improve conditions and increase output at the same time, then we know we're doing our job," Klippel said.
Factors such as the growing world population and continued growth within developing nations will allow CTB to increase sales and expand its business nationwide.
After hearing from two local agro-businesses, KLA students then were given a presentation from Kelly Easterday, Purdue University county extension educator, on agricultural statistics and trends within the state.
Focusing on Kosciusko County, Easterday provided information from the 2002 Indiana Census of Agriculture which ranked the county as the highest in the state in terms of agricultural sales. Within these sales, livestock sales ranked third.
"The poultry sector is key to this statistic," Easterday said. "By having these businesses, this allows for crops to stay within the county to feed livestock, so not only will you have livestock sales, but crop sales increase as well."
Even with the highest sales in the state, Kosciusko ranks 56th in terms of total acreage used for agro-production. Easterday credited this statistic to the improvement in technology within farms to find ways to produce more grain or livestock within a smaller amount of land.
KLA moderator Steve Grill said that it was interaction between such companies as Creighton Brothers and CTB that helps create superior agricultural business.
"We have immense interaction within Kosciusko which makes the county greatly diversified in an agricultural sense," Grill said. "It's amazing to see how much farms have changed over the years."
Truex couldn't agree more.
"When I started, Creighton Brothers did not own a computer," he said. "Now everything we do is calculated and performed by a certain form of technology."
