IOM still going strong

It’s been an exciting decade, but the folks at IOM Grain believe an even brighter future lies ahead.
With its new $5 million plant taking shape in Portland’s Industrial Park, the company — founded as H&B Conditioning — is looking at new horizons.
But the mission is still the same:
•Help producers farm smarter.
•Clean and condition harvested grains to elevate them from feed grade to food grade.
•And serve an international market hungry for the best that American agriculture has to offer.
The family-owned company opened its doors in 2003 in the former Bailey Seed Farm, and the concept behind it was deceptively simple.
Midwestern farmers mostly raise corn and soybeans. But the vast majority of that crop — at least locally — goes into animal feed. The founders of H&B believed thoughtful techniques employed during harvesting, coupled with an emphasis on quality control during cleaning, drying and conditioning of the crop would make the same corn and soybeans significantly more valuable.
After all, crops produced for human consumption bring a better price than those produced for consumption by livestock.
Just the same, said IOM’s leader Ramon Loucks, over the past 10 years some things have changed. A lot.
“At one time we were corn and soybeans,” he said. “White corn, blue corn, yellow corn, red corn and five or six varieties of soybeans.
“Then ethanol came in and changed our corn basis enough that … food grade corn was hard to purchase with the competition of the ethanol plants.”
The solution?
“We made a conscious decision to step away from corn,” said Loucks. “And then we got into the soybean business 100 percent. We’ve never looked back.”
That was in 2010.
The result, said Loucks, has been “constant growth,” an estimated 20 percent each year.
Working solely with soybeans renewed the company’s focus on Asian markets, with 82 percent of IOM’s sales coming, at one point, from its exports to Japan, Taiwan and South Korea.
The uncertainties of international currency exchange markets have, more recently, led IOM to work toward a 60-40 balance between international and domestic sales.
“The majority of our exports are to Japan,” said Loucks. “That is our preferred market. As the middle class has continued to develop in the Southeast Asian nations, we’re seeing more interest in our type of beans.”
High quality is essential to IOM’s export success. The company has built a network of agricultural producers in Indiana, Ohio and Michigan (that’s the IOM behind IOM) in about a 100-mile radius from Jay County.
“We need geographic diversity,” said Loucks.
That diversity can help reduce the impact of severe weather that makes for bad growing conditions.
In 2012, for instance, when a record drought played havoc with soybean yields in the Midwest, IOM’s overall yield production was down just 15 percent because it was working with a more diverse group of farms and producers.
“We finished sales a year ago to end users with unmet demand,” he said.
Even in a year like 2013 when yields are higher, it’s still difficult to handle every request.
“This year, I already have enough orders that we’re going to have unmet demand,” said Loucks.
How much has demand grown?
Back in 2003, H&B Conditioning would ship out about 200 to 250 trucks per year. These days, the number is more like 2,500. And volume from the new plant in Portland Industrial Park could push it to more than 3,000 trucks a year.
All that product is trackable right down to the growers’ fields.
“Just keeping good records,” Loucks said. “We’ve been doing this for 10 years. … We have some of our original growers.”
Customers for that soybean product include companies like White Wave soy milk and House Foods tofu. Kellogg is another likely to be added this year through a third party.
“Certain times of the year, if you walk into Walmart and buy House Foods tofu, you’re buying beans that came from here,” Loucks said.
The new plant, he added, is a matter of “growth to handle capacity” rather than growth that will add many jobs.
He’s clearly excited about the prospects the new plant will offer.
“I’m thrilled with the quality of construction,” he said. “I’m thrilled with the conscientiousness of the contractors. … Our goal is to make something Portland is going to be proud of too. … I didn’t want to do a flat old ugly box of a building. I didn’t want to do that to Portland.”
Atlin Construction, Muncie, is leading work on the project in cooperation with Troxel Equipment, Bluffton, and TJ’s Concrete of Portland.
“We hope to be there by the end of February,” said Loucks.[[In-content Ad]]