 |
HISTORY |
Harold D. Koch PO Box 167 Gann Valley, SD 57401 Phone #: 605-293-3430 Toll Free: 1-800-822-3430 Email: hdkoch@midstatesd.net |
|
HISTORY |
Harold D. Koch PO Box 167 Gann Valley, SD 57401 Phone #: 605-293-3430 Toll Free: 1-800-822-3430 Email: hdkoch@midstatesd.net |
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Koch Manufacturing started as an "on the Farm
Non-Farm Enterprise." We financed the purchase of the homestead farm
and some farm machinery through the Farmers Home Administration.
Along with the farm loan we borrowed additional capital to purchase tooling
for the purpose of generating extra income on the farm. With this
machinery we took on some contract work and for about ten years our work
force consisted of my wife, my three sons, and myself. |
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We contracted product design, product development,
manufacturing, and developed proprietary products. These proprietary
products included a patented "Universal Spare Tire Carrier," pick-up grill
guards, pick-up end gates, tool boxes, hog troughs, cattle panels, feed
bunks, portable hayracks, bale feeders, cake feeders, farm machinery carriers,
and large, small, on, and off highway trailers. We used the proprietary
products to get us through slow times with our contract work. Then we were contracted to build twenty calf creep
feeders. Calf creep feeders had been around for many years, but the
design was never improved to any great extent. We did a great amount
of research and made some innovative and revolutionary changes to
its basic design. This product became so popular that demand grew
from twenty units the first year, to more than eight hundred units in five
years (we could have sold more if we would have been able to build them).
We had outgrown our facility to build them and our non-farm income exceeded
farm income by ten times. We were employing as many as twenty full-time
people. Using the top door concept from the creep feeder, we
developed the AG-TOPPER (a cover used on feed, grain, fertilizer, boxes,
and wagons). This too became a popular product. We have
sold more than a thousand of these in twenty states and Canadian provinces
with a much smaller workforce. We sold the creep feeder business
to concentrate on the topper and related products. Through advertising
we have several thousand inquiries from all over the USA and Canada.
People have traveled hundreds of miles to obtain an AG-TOPPER from
us. Currently, we are marketing the tooling and know-how
to make the AG-TOPPER through "Satellite Manufacturers" across the United
States. By developing manufacturing sites throughout the United States,
it makes the marketing and shipping of the AG-TOPPER, and related ag products,
more feasible. |