NEW CAMBRIA, KAS. — Farmer Direct Foods, Inc. (FDF), a producer-owned cooperative stone-ground milling operation, has relocated its corporate offices to New Cambria from Atchison, Kas. The move is expected to allow the company to consolidate operations to better meet customer needs.
Mark Fowler, president of Farmer Direct Foods |
“Through our reorganization, we have been able to focus on improving our production efficiencies, which has increased our production capacity 30%,” said Mark Fowler, president. “Our on-site facility manager has helped strengthen this production capability.
“These improvements have led to expansion opportunities that offer diversity in our products. We recently commissioned a processing line for teff flour and will explore opportunities to process other ancient grains. We continue to build on our strong foundation of processing identity assured hard white and hard red winter wheat products, in partnership with our cooperative members in Kansas and Colorado.”
Mr. Fowler took over as president last year, succeeding Kent Symns, who retired in December. Mr. Fowler previously was the associate director of the IGP Institute at Kansas State University in Manhattan. Prior to joining the Department of Grain Science at Kansas State University, Mr. Fowler was an overseas milling technologist for Seaboard Corp., where he worked on projects in several developing countries, including Ecuador, Guyana and Haiti. He also was the technical director of the Africa Division within Seaboard’s Overseas Group in Durban, South Africa. Prior to joining Seaboard, Mr. Fowler gained milling experience working for Cargill in both Los Angeles and Wichita, Kas.
In addition to Mr. Fowler, Justin Howie has assumed additional responsibilities as facility manager due to the retirement of Marcia Walters, director of operations.
Mr. Symns founded Farmer Direct Foods in May 1988 as the American White Wheat Producers Association. The association’s goal was to promote white wheat as a marketable alternative to Kansas’ traditional crop, hard red winter wheat. Shareholders of the American White Wheat Producers Association, at a special meeting in March 2003, voted to change the name of their organization to Farmer Direct Foods, Inc.