Alpine Plant Foods serving New Hamburg and Baden farmers for over half a century

Murray Van Zeggelaar and Doug Wagner got together last week to reminisce about the good fortunes of agriculture in this area. Photo by Gary West

By Gary West

Farmers of all types in the New Hamburg and Baden areas have come to know that a liquid-fertilizer company known as Alpine Plant Foods is one of the truly great, local success stories when it comes to supporting the growth of high-yield crops. The story really started in 1973 when a young New Hamburg entrepreneur, Doug Wagner, started Alpine Plant Foods, but his history before that is also interesting. Wagner began farming at the age of 14 when his father gave him and his brother some space in the barn to keep a small sow herd, and then a year later they expanded into cropping by renting the neighbour’s farm and using their father‘s equipment. At age 18, a year after quitting school, Wagner bought a used combine from a retiring custom operator for $10,000 with $1,000 down and the seller taking a note for the balance. That began his custom-farming business. Wagner always had ambitions to do more than just farming, so two years later, in 1968, he got into the fertilizer business by buying truckloads of bagged fertilizer from the United States and selling it directly to farmers in Ontario. He was even able to broker a deal with some of the agricultural retailers in Ontario when he was in a position to do so. He says money was tight and hard to come by in those days, so Wagner had a strict policy with his customers of cash or cheque on delivery. He said this allowed him to gather up funds needed to pay his supplier the following week so he could buy more fertilizer. Wagner’s business plan had been successful, but in 1971, bulk-blending plants began to appear in Ontario and he quickly realized his business model was soon going to be obsolete. He decided he needed to either get into the bulk-blending business and compete with big companies like CIL, or get into a niche market that would enable him to make the margins he was looking for. In 1972, Na-Churs Plant Food company moved their offices from London, Ont. to Marion, Ohio, and Wagner saw an opportunity to fill this void, so he began importing similar liquid-fertilizer products out of the U.S. He imported them for about a year but started thinking about how he could manufacture these products himself. So, he started buying used equipment so he could manufacture his own fertilizer, and the rest, as they say, is history. In 1973, Wagner took the plunge and leased a building at 62 Arnold St. in New Hamburg, where he installed his equipment and incorporated as Alpine Plant Foods Ltd.This was in an old Quonset building located along the railway tracks, which allowed him to begin bringing in materials by rail car. “Tt was very difficult to get raw materials the first year as this was the heart of the 1970s energy crisis and many raw materials were on allocation only,” Wagner said.  But being a resourceful person as he was, Wagner managed to trade other materials he had access to in order to get the raw materials he needed to supply his fledging liquid-fertilizer business.He will be the first to say there were many issues to manage through the ‘80s and early ‘90s, and by the mid 1990s, Wagner decided he had taken the Alpine business as far as he could on his own, and the decision was made to look for another owner. In 1996, Alpine Plant Food Ltd. was sold to KRG capital of Denver, Colo., and the business was then renamed. In 1998, the Na-Churs plant-food company acquired the Alpine plant-food corporation on Dec. 20. They had two locations one in Corydon, Ind. and New Hamburg, Ont. The liquid-fertilizer business continues to grow at the New Hamburg plant located on Nafziger Road between  New Hamburg and Baden, which was built and began operations in 1999 after being acquired by the Na-Churs plant food company. Farming is not the only line of business in which the company is involved. They also provide runway de-icer for many major airports and industrial applications that include water treatment and concrete additives. Wagner is proud to know that Na-Churs Alpine has always been community minded and one of many donations it has made included the scoreboard for the new field at Waterloo-Oxford District Secondary School. They also employ over 30 employees out of the New Hamburg plant, and growth of business is pegged at between five and 10 per cent every year. From the age of 14 until now, one has to give credit to Wagner for having the foresight to see the growth potential of what has become a very useful liquid ingredient in growing crops today and long into the future.