The Seili family looks back at Huron Feeding Systems after fully stepping back
BY SCOTT STEPHENSON
Jacquie Waechter’s first real memory of her parents’ business, Huron Feeding Systems (HFS), is seeing her sister, Christine, sitting in a playpen at the family’s new shop in Brussels, in 1987. Up until that point, her parents, Joe and Deb Seili, had been running the business out of their garage.
She may not actually remember it, but Waechter has heard the story of how her parents founded HFS enough times to tell the tale. “My dad came home one day and told my mom, who was eight months pregnant with my brother, Mike, that he was setting up his own business. And he did!” she told The Citizen. Once Deb got over her initial surprise, she set about doing the books for the new business.
In Joe’s opinion, he had a simple enough reason for starting HFS way back in 1978. “I was kind of young and stupid, and thought that the bosses made more money,” he explained. “I just hope that anybody that’s thinking of starting a business does a little better research job than I did when I started mine.”
The first five years were pretty tough. “The 80s had high interest rates, and bankers weren’t very friendly to young entrepreneurs,” Joe recollected. “After about five years, we knew we could make it, and move forward. Our business was built on service, so you pretty well live and breathe it - especially in a business where service can come at any time. You spend a lot more than 40 hours a week.”
As a child, Waechter never knew why her dad spent so much time working. “I did not appreciate it when I was younger, because he worked really long hours,” she explained. “My brother and I were not fond of that. But we both respect it now, why he did what he did. He did it for us, and he did it for the farmers.”
Once word was out about the level of service provided by HFS, Joe became even busier. His reputation grew - that he could get it done, that he would keep his word, that he would service the systems he set up whenever need be. “Well, at harvest time, all the dryers have to be serviced,” Waechter pointed out. “So, there’s a lot of hours put into keeping all the dryers going, and remembering who is who and who has what.”
Even though the grain dryers were time consuming to maintain and service, they’re still Joe’s favourite component of the job - he always enjoyed the challenge. “Grain dryers took a little bit of technology and a little brain work, and it had to work 24/7,” he pointed out. “It just sits for 11 months, and then it has to run for another month and not shut down.”
Livestock feeding and grain storage has changed a lot since the early days of HFS. “At the beginning, a lot of farmers did their own on-farm feed processing,” he explained. “As it integrated into more commercial farming, it was more feed mills and contracts. For the small producer, it was easier for them to have their feed brought in.” These days, the needs of the modern farmer have become much more precise and specialized.
HFS deals mostly with feed systems for pigs and cattle. “There’s other companies who can do chicken lines,” Waechter declared. The feed for the animals in the barn comes out of a feed tank, and then goes through flex augers to different feeders in the barn. If the feed needs to be more fine, it goes through either roller mills or hammer mills. “If the farmer’s growing his own corn, it needs to be crushed before it gets fed or combined with another ingredient,” she explained. “Or, some farmers have their own feed factories, and so we’ll have set up the tanks and the mills for that, and then the flex augers into the barns to feed the animals. The other part of the feeding systems is the grain handling where we’d put up the grain storage bins and the crop dryers.”
Livestock feeding systems are big business, for good reason - it would be impossible to safely produce food on the scale that is necessary to feed the world [without them]. From the earliest days of agriculture, livestock feeding has evolved alongside human society. In the Neolithic era, when animals were first domesticated, feeding systems were simple and relied entirely on natural grazing. Farmers supplemented diets only with leftover grains or crop residues. By the Middle Ages, livestock management became more deliberate. The three-field crop rotation system was created in Europe, and haymaking allowed farmers to preserve feed for winter. It was very labour intensive, and livestock nutrition was poorly understood.
Grain grinders and chaff cutters were invented in the 19th century, and the Industrial Revolution led to silage-making techniques. Scientific research into animal nutrition expanded, paving the way for formulated feeds and supplements. In the 20th century, specialized feeding systems came about - the invention of automatic feeders and conveyor belts reduced manual labour. Silos, bunker storage and plastic-wrapped baleage improved preservation of high-moisture feeds, and mixed rations ensure that livestock receive a consistent blend of forage, grain and supplements.
Today, livestock feeding systems are increasingly automated and data-driven. Precision agriculture uses sensors, Radio-Frequency Identification tags and computer-controlled feeders to tailor diets to individual animals. Sustainability concerns have also shaped feeding practices, with emphasis on reducing waste, improving feed efficiency, and incorporating byproducts from other industries.
Even though he was away a lot, Waechter remembers that her dad always made sure to leave work at work. “He was able to draw that line very well - that was one thing he stressed, all along, was to keep that separate,” she recalled. “Even as much as you are family, it’s still separate. You have that short ride home or ride to gear up and wind down.”
Waechter never thought she would go into the family business, but life had other plans. “I did my co-op there in high school and college, because it was easy. And then, in October of ‘95, my dad was electrocuted - on Friday the 13th! I wasn’t superstitious till then,” she explained. “I had to step in and run the business for three weeks, because he couldn’t. I took a leave from school. I was living in Formosa, and going to school in Owen Sound, and I came down to help keep it all going,” she explained.
Unexpectedly stepping into her dad’s shoes did come with a sharp learning curve, but Waechter was able to stay the course, with a little bit of help. “Because we’d built all these relationships with customers and suppliers, we all just worked together to make it as painless for Dad as possible, who couldn’t be there, while still keeping everybody running. Farmers can’t be down in harvest - they’ve got to keep going. Everybody was able to step in and help, and we were able to return those favours a few times.”
She did such a great job, in fact, that her parents entrusted her with the business a few years later when they took a trip to Italy. “And then, when they came back, Dad asked if I would be interested in working there a couple days a week. And then I’m not sure when it went from four days, to five days, to five days-plus, but it did. And absolutely no regrets. We’ve made incredible friendships over the years, with customers and suppliers alike,” she told The Citizen. “I am very grateful for the relationships that I have built with customers and suppliers alike over the last 25 years, and I plan to maintain a lot of those friendships that have developed.”
When it was finally time for Joe and Deb to slow down a few years ago, Waechter teamed up with a trusted, longtime employee of HFS, Andrew Weishar, to run the business. “We got along really well, and we decided we could become business partners, to carry on what mom and dad had built.” This past winter, Weishar bought Waechter out - she’s now officially retired, as are Joe and Deb, and she’s very proud of what her family has accomplished. “The fact that we have been family-owned and operated for over 45 years, and we always keep our word - if we’re going to get this done in this time frame, we do it,” she said. “People have come to trust that we will get it done, and we’re there to service it after the fact, and we answer the phone in the middle of the night and on weekends. Not everybody does that.”
Even in retirement, the family has the best interest of local farmers in their hearts and on their minds. Even though Joe and Deb’s 50th wedding anniversary is actually on Nov. 8, they decided to celebrate it at the Brussels Legion in August, so as to not conflict with this year’s harvest, since so many of their invited guests were, of course, farmers. Where else are you going to find service like that?