Hartville Feed
Main office: Hartville, Mo.
Owner: Jody Flaro
History: “We’ve been in business since 1965,” said owner Jody Flaro, who purchased the mill from the Hudson family of Hartville in 2004. “I have amassed a team of very solid individuals who do a tremendous job of taking care of our customers. I got involved in the feed business back in 1995 in Florida, and I was involved in agriculture in Florida, in the Southwest and Northwest, as well as the Northeast from my consulting days of having clients in the ag industry. We did a national search, looking for a feed mill to acquire in the early 2000s and came upon this opportunity with the Hudson family.
Services: “We are primarily a feed manufacturer,” Flaro said. “We supply feed from Houston, Mo., to the Kansas line, up to Nevada, Mo., to the Arkansas line; basically the entire 417 area code. We have a nutritionist on staff and do all of our own nutrition work. Ninety-five percent of the work we do is our custom feed rations, so we are really big into the service side of things. For dairy accounts, for example, we will go out and take forage samples, send that off to the lab for analysis and then customize a ration to meet the customer’s need. The thing I have enjoyed most is bringing true customer focus to the feed industry in southern Missouri. The big companies have been spread very thin, and their people only call on the largest customers. Our people make contact with our customers every other week, and the customers really appreciate that. We have a very loyal customer base, and we are one of the largest privately held feed mills in southern Missouri. We have approximately 12 distribution points, including dealers and company-owned locations in southern Missouri. It’s less about feed, it’s more about helping our customers become better operators and become more profitable. Our philosophy is “what’s good for the farmer is good for Hartville Feed.” We take a customer approach first, then the rest takes care of itself. We are open six days a week, but available 24/7 by phone, email and text to address our customers’ needs.”
Future: We are always growing. We have more than doubled the size of our business since 2004, and I see us continuing to grow. The feed industry has been very fragmented with small feed mills serving small areas. Our market in 2004 was may be a 35-mile radius of Hartville. Now its 120 to 150 miles.
