By CELESTE BAUMGARTNER
Ohio Correspondent

WASHINGTON COURT HOUSE, Ohio — Seed Consultants, Inc. (SCI) is celebrating 20 years in the business. Independent observers have called SCI the fastest growing seed company in the Eastern Corn Belt, said Stuart Yensel, director of sales and marketing.

Their slogan is Simply, the best value in the seed industry.

“We feel that we offer the best value and our customers tell us that,” Yensel said.

When Chris Jeffries and Dan Fox started the company in the corner of a farmer’s implement building, they didn’t dream that the company would become one of the largest independent seed companies in the United States.

Fox’s and Jeffries’ backgrounds were both in production agriculture and the seed industry. In the 1990s they were working for major seed companies but felt the western-based companies lacked adequate Eastern Corn Belt testing and strong regional products.

“I was disenchanted with the way companies were treating our customers,” Jeffries said. “The companies we worked for were not going to add regionalized products, and we were told to basically sell whatever we were given.”

Fox and Jeffries wanted to give customers the best genetics for the region so in 1990, Jeffries, a Purdue University graduate with majors in animal science and agricultural education, and Fox, a Wilmington College graduate in agricultural business, started testing, selecting and selling genetics for the Eastern Corn Belt. Starting in 1990, the company grew to $1 million in sales in 1996 and $43 million in 2010.

The company’s priorities are: servicing customers, supporting growers and doing research, Yensel said.

“If you buy seed from us it is a complete package, from recommending varieties, to follow-through throughout the whole growing season,” he said. “If you have problems or questions or concerns there are full-time agronomists on the staff to answer those technical questions.”

“We have an upfront fair and honest price the first time,” Yensel said. “We don’t play pricing games.”

Customers appreciate the family-owned company’s passion and integrity.

“People believing in us was the main key to the company’s success,” Fox said. “We talked about selling 10,000 bags of corn some day. In 2010 Seed Consultants sold more than 120,000 bags of seed corn and 600,000 bags of soybeans for a 20 percent growth in volume.”

Fox believes the sky is the limit in the next 20 years and Jeffries foresees selling 250,000 units of corn and a million units of soybeans within five years.

“I never pictured us being this size,” Jeffries said. “We can never thank our friends and customers enough. Dan and I work hard, but we have the greatest friends and customers in agriculture.”

For more information visit www.seed consultants.com or phone 800-708-2676.

At the Farm Science Review, look up SCI at Lot 245 by the corner of Equipment and Dairy.