As your car rolls southbound on I-159 in Red
Bud, Illinois, you gaze out your driver's side window. Just before Weigand Road, you notice a huge, green sign that points you in the right direction.
You turn east, and you can feel it - a sense of family lingering over the rural Illinois town. You pass another green sign, reading "North Production Facility," that guides your eyes to a white metal-sided building housing 700 sows. Farther down the road, four consecutive five-acre lots hold quaint horses with perfectly manicured lawns. You notice that all the vehicles in their driveways bear license plates with the initials GROMN.
You turn onto Cedar Ridge Lane, a gravel road that leads you to the place where it all began 50 years ago - the house where Fed and Betty Grohmann taught six boys how to be men. And the same place where those six men became managers of Cedar Ridge Farms, an internationally known, family-run seedstock and commercial hog operation.
Humble Beginnings:
Bob, Dennis, Stan, Mike, Randy and Freddie Grohmann don't know exactly why their dad bought two Landrace sows in 1954, when Cedar Ridge consisted of nothing more than 120 acres blanketed by cedar trees and use partially for crop production and a few feeder pigs.
"I think Dad just wanted to be different," says Mike, the middle son. "Nobody around here had a Landrace. They were kind of like an exotic breed." The Grohmanns began to take advantage of their unusual breed by exhibiting at 10 to 12 county fairs during the summer and earning extra income for the farm through the fairs' "lay-in" policies, which awarded them all of the Landrace breed show's premium money if they were the only people at the show with Landrace hogs. "If you had lay-in, the fairs wouldn't make you show, but you had to have the hogs there so all the people could look at them," Mike says. "People at those fairs, the commercial guys, would see the hogs, start talking with dad and end up wanting to buy a boar. So we started selling more seedstock."
The operation gained exposure and popularity as the Grohmann's exhibited at more state fairs and walked away with more champions. Today, between two farms, the six brothers maintain 900 purebred Duroc, Hampshire, Landrace and Yorkshire sows, 1,400 sows producing Landrace and Yorkshire crossbred commercial gilts and a boar stud. They also utilize their now 300-acre operation and rented land to farm approximately 1,200 acres of corn, soybean and wheat.
Becoming A Six-Manager Team:
Cedar Ridge didn't always have a six-brother team to make management decisions. The four youngest Grohmann brothers, Stan, 52; Mike, 51; Randy, 44; and Freddie, 36 have always worked on the farm, but the operation wasn't large enough to support Bob, 54 and Dennis, 53, when they graduated from high school.
Although Bob and Dennis worked away from the farm, they retained ownership of a few hogs they sold in the farms production sales. Bob returned to the farm 10 years ago, and Dennis joined his brothers in 2001. "It got to be too hard to figure out whose hogs went where in what sale, which ultimately led to us combining everything," Mike says. "Now the farm owns it all, and we all get the same salary."
Defining and Refining Job Responsibilities:
Time and age helped define each brother's specific job role on the farm. "We can all analyze hogs and take care of a customer, but not everyone can do that because all of the work won't get done," Mike says. "So, each day we would pick what we were going to do, and over time, we just kept doing what we were the best at."
Stan's advantage in age allowed him to work in the field alongside their dad, where he learned how to combine and fix machinery, while Mike took care of the hogs. Now, Stan and their cousin, Marion, make all of the grain-farming decisions, and Mike deals one-on-one with customers and selects the farm's showhogs.
Stan also handles the farm's manure management and works with Randy, who grinds feed, makes local grain deliveries, managers the farm's hog flow and supervises the part-time employees.
Freddie oversees breeding, farrowing and crossfostering at the North Production Unit. He is also the farm's unofficial computer technician, a title he earned by default because his wife, Leslie, teaches an introductory computer class.
Dennis works with his son Chad at the sow unit in Dormstock, Illinois, which houses approximately 800 sows.
Bob processes and ships semen at the boar stud, while also helping Freddie at the sow house.
Each brother carries out his specific job responsibility, but if an illness or family emergency causes one brother to miss a day, no work is left undone; there are five other people who know exactly what needs to be accomplished.
Covering from each other when someone misses a day of work isn't the only benefit to having six managers, Mike says. "There are more managers who want to get all of the work done in a day," he says. "More quality work gets done, and better decisions are made."
Separating Work From Family:
With 14 full-time employees on the farm, and only three that hold no family ties to the Grohmann name, the brothers and other relatives struggle not to talk about work at family functions. "We're just around each other so much that there isn't a real separation," Mike says. "For a couple of hours at a party we drop work, but when the party winds down, we start talking about who's doing what the next day."
If they need to make a substantial farm decision or settle a disagreement about a work-related, the brothers hold a meeting and vote on the issue. The meetings can take up to four hours, according to Dennis, but they help the brothers differentiate family from work.
Sustaining The Grohmann Tradition:
With 20 children between the six brothers, continuing the Grohmann legacy shouldn't be an issue, but each brother ponders who will take control of the operation in the future.
Four of the immediate children currently work on the farm, but none of them are expected to work there after high school graduation. Instead, their fathers encourage them to get bachelor's degrees. "My wife and I want all of our kids to get a four-year degree," says Freddie, whose oldest child is ten. "When they have the degree, their starting salaries will definitely be more than the farm could pay, so they'll probably say, "Why do I want to work on a hog farm?"
The children stay involved with the operation by showing pigs at state fairs and national shows, helping load all of the pigs when it's weaning day or performing other farm duties. "It's hard to involve the kids and to spark their interest," Mike says. "You never know what they're thinking."
Dennis says the farm's size makes it hard to use the same decision-making tactics their dad used on them, but the more time the kids spend on the farm, the more responsibility they take on. "It'll be a progression of time, and we hope that it continues to be a family thing," says Stan. "There are a lot of ifs, ands, or buts about it."
Considering The Past for the Future:
Although the Grohmann brothers can't pinpoint who will take over the operation, they continue to expand and plan for the future of Cedar Ridge. They attribute their success to the recent hog industry trends, but also to their father's foresight and determination to maintain the same hog type when everyone else wanted to change. Their father's breeding decisions, which resulted in consistently lean, high-quality hogs, opened the export-market door 30 years ago. "We became known as the place to come for Landrace, Mike says. Word-of-mouth, what the Grohmann brothers say is their best marketing tool, and a little help from export companies have allowed buyers from more than 40 countries to purchase Cedar Ridge hogs.
International and domestic buyers visit the closed-herd operation to privately purchase hogs and attend the farm's annual production sales, where the family sells boars and bred gilts. "We're all able to work here because of the seedstock business," Freddie says. "We just wouldn't be able to survive without it."
Diversifying the business by adding the boar stud in 1998 and expanding the sow unit in 2003 to Dormstock, Illinois, will take the Grohmann Family into the future, but they never stop looking for new ways to increase profitability.
A Family Like No Other:
Cedar trees no longer dot the landscape of Cedar Ridge, but the dedication, hard work and cooperation of a family operation still hold root.
The Grohmann's hog quality and reputation attract people to the farm, and their common goal to "make a happy living" that they portray to every visitor brings each customer back a second time. Red Bud, Illinois isn't a well-known town. But once you've taken that drive past the Cedar Ridge buildings and turned onto Cedar Ridge Lane, you'll never forget the feeling of family you experience.
Author: Megan Townsend
Photos: Christy Couch Lee & Megan Townsend
Bud, Illinois, you gaze out your driver's side window. Just before Weigand Road, you notice a huge, green sign that points you in the right direction.You turn east, and you can feel it - a sense of family lingering over the rural Illinois town. You pass another green sign, reading "North Production Facility," that guides your eyes to a white metal-sided building housing 700 sows. Farther down the road, four consecutive five-acre lots hold quaint horses with perfectly manicured lawns. You notice that all the vehicles in their driveways bear license plates with the initials GROMN.
You turn onto Cedar Ridge Lane, a gravel road that leads you to the place where it all began 50 years ago - the house where Fed and Betty Grohmann taught six boys how to be men. And the same place where those six men became managers of Cedar Ridge Farms, an internationally known, family-run seedstock and commercial hog operation.
Humble Beginnings:
Bob, Dennis, Stan, Mike, Randy and Freddie Grohmann don't know exactly why their dad bought two Landrace sows in 1954, when Cedar Ridge consisted of nothing more than 120 acres blanketed by cedar trees and use partially for crop production and a few feeder pigs.
"I think Dad just wanted to be different," says Mike, the middle son. "Nobody around here had a Landrace. They were kind of like an exotic breed." The Grohmanns began to take advantage of their unusual breed by exhibiting at 10 to 12 county fairs during the summer and earning extra income for the farm through the fairs' "lay-in" policies, which awarded them all of the Landrace breed show's premium money if they were the only people at the show with Landrace hogs. "If you had lay-in, the fairs wouldn't make you show, but you had to have the hogs there so all the people could look at them," Mike says. "People at those fairs, the commercial guys, would see the hogs, start talking with dad and end up wanting to buy a boar. So we started selling more seedstock."
The operation gained exposure and popularity as the Grohmann's exhibited at more state fairs and walked away with more champions. Today, between two farms, the six brothers maintain 900 purebred Duroc, Hampshire, Landrace and Yorkshire sows, 1,400 sows producing Landrace and Yorkshire crossbred commercial gilts and a boar stud. They also utilize their now 300-acre operation and rented land to farm approximately 1,200 acres of corn, soybean and wheat.
Becoming A Six-Manager Team:Cedar Ridge didn't always have a six-brother team to make management decisions. The four youngest Grohmann brothers, Stan, 52; Mike, 51; Randy, 44; and Freddie, 36 have always worked on the farm, but the operation wasn't large enough to support Bob, 54 and Dennis, 53, when they graduated from high school.
Although Bob and Dennis worked away from the farm, they retained ownership of a few hogs they sold in the farms production sales. Bob returned to the farm 10 years ago, and Dennis joined his brothers in 2001. "It got to be too hard to figure out whose hogs went where in what sale, which ultimately led to us combining everything," Mike says. "Now the farm owns it all, and we all get the same salary."
Defining and Refining Job Responsibilities:
Time and age helped define each brother's specific job role on the farm. "We can all analyze hogs and take care of a customer, but not everyone can do that because all of the work won't get done," Mike says. "So, each day we would pick what we were going to do, and over time, we just kept doing what we were the best at."
Stan's advantage in age allowed him to work in the field alongside their dad, where he learned how to combine and fix machinery, while Mike took care of the hogs. Now, Stan and their cousin, Marion, make all of the grain-farming decisions, and Mike deals one-on-one with customers and selects the farm's showhogs.
Stan also handles the farm's manure management and works with Randy, who grinds feed, makes local grain deliveries, managers the farm's hog flow and supervises the part-time employees.
Freddie oversees breeding, farrowing and crossfostering at the North Production Unit. He is also the farm's unofficial computer technician, a title he earned by default because his wife, Leslie, teaches an introductory computer class.
Dennis works with his son Chad at the sow unit in Dormstock, Illinois, which houses approximately 800 sows.
Bob processes and ships semen at the boar stud, while also helping Freddie at the sow house.
Each brother carries out his specific job responsibility, but if an illness or family emergency causes one brother to miss a day, no work is left undone; there are five other people who know exactly what needs to be accomplished.
Covering from each other when someone misses a day of work isn't the only benefit to having six managers, Mike says. "There are more managers who want to get all of the work done in a day," he says. "More quality work gets done, and better decisions are made."
Separating Work From Family:
With 14 full-time employees on the farm, and only three that hold no family ties to the Grohmann name, the brothers and other relatives struggle not to talk about work at family functions. "We're just around each other so much that there isn't a real separation," Mike says. "For a couple of hours at a party we drop work, but when the party winds down, we start talking about who's doing what the next day."
If they need to make a substantial farm decision or settle a disagreement about a work-related, the brothers hold a meeting and vote on the issue. The meetings can take up to four hours, according to Dennis, but they help the brothers differentiate family from work.
Sustaining The Grohmann Tradition:
With 20 children between the six brothers, continuing the Grohmann legacy shouldn't be an issue, but each brother ponders who will take control of the operation in the future.
Four of the immediate children currently work on the farm, but none of them are expected to work there after high school graduation. Instead, their fathers encourage them to get bachelor's degrees. "My wife and I want all of our kids to get a four-year degree," says Freddie, whose oldest child is ten. "When they have the degree, their starting salaries will definitely be more than the farm could pay, so they'll probably say, "Why do I want to work on a hog farm?"
The children stay involved with the operation by showing pigs at state fairs and national shows, helping load all of the pigs when it's weaning day or performing other farm duties. "It's hard to involve the kids and to spark their interest," Mike says. "You never know what they're thinking."
Dennis says the farm's size makes it hard to use the same decision-making tactics their dad used on them, but the more time the kids spend on the farm, the more responsibility they take on. "It'll be a progression of time, and we hope that it continues to be a family thing," says Stan. "There are a lot of ifs, ands, or buts about it."
Considering The Past for the Future:
Although the Grohmann brothers can't pinpoint who will take over the operation, they continue to expand and plan for the future of Cedar Ridge. They attribute their success to the recent hog industry trends, but also to their father's foresight and determination to maintain the same hog type when everyone else wanted to change. Their father's breeding decisions, which resulted in consistently lean, high-quality hogs, opened the export-market door 30 years ago. "We became known as the place to come for Landrace, Mike says. Word-of-mouth, what the Grohmann brothers say is their best marketing tool, and a little help from export companies have allowed buyers from more than 40 countries to purchase Cedar Ridge hogs.
International and domestic buyers visit the closed-herd operation to privately purchase hogs and attend the farm's annual production sales, where the family sells boars and bred gilts. "We're all able to work here because of the seedstock business," Freddie says. "We just wouldn't be able to survive without it."
Diversifying the business by adding the boar stud in 1998 and expanding the sow unit in 2003 to Dormstock, Illinois, will take the Grohmann Family into the future, but they never stop looking for new ways to increase profitability.
A Family Like No Other:
Cedar trees no longer dot the landscape of Cedar Ridge, but the dedication, hard work and cooperation of a family operation still hold root.
The Grohmann's hog quality and reputation attract people to the farm, and their common goal to "make a happy living" that they portray to every visitor brings each customer back a second time. Red Bud, Illinois isn't a well-known town. But once you've taken that drive past the Cedar Ridge buildings and turned onto Cedar Ridge Lane, you'll never forget the feeling of family you experience.
Author: Megan Townsend
Photos: Christy Couch Lee & Megan Townsend
2007 Copyright Cedar Ridge Swine Genetics
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