Washington Court House, Ohio, USA
August 18, 2010

When Chris Jeffries and Dan Fox started Seed Consultants Inc. (SCI) in the corner of a farmer’s implement building, they never dreamed the company would become one of the largest independent seed companies in the U.S.

Fox’s and Jeffries’ backgrounds were both in production agriculture and the seed industry. In the ‘90s 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 recalls. “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 Ag Business, started testing, selecting and selling genetics for the Eastern Corn Belt. The company quickly grew from $0 sales in 1990 to $1 million in 1996 and $43 million in 2010.

Customers appreciate the family-owned company’s passion and integrity. “People believing in us was the main key to the company’s success,” Fox says. “We talked about selling 10,000 bags of corn some day,” Fox chuckles. In 2010 Seed Consultants sold more than 120,000 bags of seed corn and 600,000 bags of soybeans for a 20% 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 admits. “We can never thank our friends and customers enough. Dan and I work hard, but we have the greatest friends and customers in agriculture.”

Seed Consultants Inc. at a glance

• Started in 1990 by Chris Jeffries and Dan Fox
• Offers quality seed at reasonable prices
• Plants more than 87,000 replicated yield plots at 105 research locations
• Employs two full-time agronomists
• Grew more than 20% in corn and soybean volume in 2010 and has averaged 10% growth the past several years.

Website: http://www.seedconsultants.com

Published: August 18, 2010