Kansas-based Star Seed will celebrate the opening of its new facility Aug. 22 to showcase the reconstruction of its production plant and to show appreciation to its customers and the community. The company’s main facility was destroyed by a fire nearly two years ago.
“We’ve been around as a company since 1920 and have been part of the Osborne community since 1930,” says Tom Lutgen, president of Star Seed. “However, since the fire, we’ve been in two different locations over the last year and a half, and we’ve seen a lot of challenges. So we want to invite the community to see how we’ve come back from adversity and where we’re going in the future.”
With customers throughout the United States, Star Seed produces a wide variety of grass, grain and legume seed, including wheat, oats, barley, rye, triticale, alfalfa, clover and brassicas, as well as lawn grass, native grass, food plot mixes and wildflowers. The company also offers both wholesale and retail sales.
Capacity is now four times greater than it was in the old facility and operations throughout the plant are computer-controlled. The company also installed a new pallet racking system for seed storage and quality control that has increased available floor space nearly five fold. As one of the only systems of its kind in the industry, it allows employees to inventory and store seed on pallets in racks that are four levels tall.
“We also have the sophisticated equipment in place to maximize seed quality to levels never before possible,” Lutgen adds. “Plus, we’ve made the plant environmentally friendly to both the community and our employees by reducing dust and noise.”
