Sanders hopes to boost business with 125-foot grain elevator
Stewart (from left), Danny and Hudson Sanders, who own and operate Oglethorpe Feed and Hardware Supply, said the new grain elevator will help them load and unload grain trucks faster. (Photo/Elizabeth Kim)
Looming 125 feet above the Oglethorpe Feed and Hardware Supply, an unfamiliar metal tower nestled between the grain storage bins has caused some confusion for the store’s customers.
“They think it’s a sign, they think it’s like a grain mixer,” said Stewart Sanders, an operator at the store. “I’m actually surprised at the amount of people in our area that just don't know what it is.”
The structure, which will look similar to a cell tower with pipes protruding to the grain bins, is a grain elevator used for loading and unloading grain feed from trucks.
Once completed, this will be the first grain elevator in Oglethorpe County.
Stewart, who runs the store with his father Danny and brother Hudson, said the main purpose of the elevator is to speed up the loading and unloading process to help customers and truckers get back on the road quicker.
All three are confident that the upgrade will increase their production and efficiency.
“If we don’t have any trouble, it takes 30-45 minutes to unload a truck. We’re hoping to bring that down to at least 15 minutes,” said Danny, who’s owned the store since 1998. “We like to get trucks unloaded faster because it helps us, but it also helps the truckers because they’re not making any money sitting here.”
Construction of the elevator began in March, but the pipes that direct the feed to the storage bins still need to be installed. There’s no set date for the opening of the grain elevator, but Stewart said they hope to have it operating early this month.
Currently, Oglethorpe Feed and Hardware unloads grain with three separate augers, which moves the grain through a large pipe with a corkscrew-like conveyor from the trucks to the tops of the storage bins.
Once in use, grain feed will be unloaded from trucks by first dumping it into a pit that feeds into the elevator’s auger. Once at the top, feed will be distributed via gravity to the storage bins through pipes that run from the top of the elevator to the openings in the tops of the bins.
The rate that the elevator moves grain is much faster than the augers that the Sanders’ currently use.
“When daddy first started, we had one auger, but we weren’t quite as busy as we are now,” Stewart said. “We might have had one load of feed show up a week, and now I could have four or five of them show up in a day.”
Hudson said the elevator would theoretically be able to handle the amount of feed that they receive daily in a fraction of the time.
“We can probably make 12 tons an hour,” he said. “I think we can make 20 or probably twice that in an hour when all of this is finished.”
The growth of business at Oglethorpe Feed and Hardware was the main push to upgrade their unloading system. Stewart said the augers they have now are able to satisfy their customers’ demands, but installing the elevator will allow future growth.
The store provides feed to businesses within a 70-mile radius. Speeding up production will help expand their reach, as well as cut back on waste.
“What we’re doing is fine, and we're able to satisfy all the customers we have, but we kind of run up against a wall,” Stewart said. “Either just stay where you're at, or you grow.”