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By Ayanna Eckblad

This year, Albert Lea Seed celebrated 100 years of the company being in their family, a huge feat for any business.

According to their website, Albert Lea Seed is dedicated to providing strong organic and non-GMO solutions” to help customers reach their goals a little easier. They supply farmers with seed and mainly serve farmers in the middle of the U.S.

While 60 to 70% of their customers are in the Midwest, they also have customers in the eastern regions of the country, and as far west as the Rocky Mountains. Two-thirds of their products are certified organic seed.

“We have a very diversified lineup of seed,” said Mac Erhardt, owner and board chairman of Albert Lea Seed. He has been part of Albert Lea Seed and its history almost his entire life, growing up in the area and working at the seed company with his dad, George, and brother, Tom.

Ehrhardt explained that many larger seed companies do not have a large portfolio of seed selections and mainly focus on corn and soybeans. While they do have corn and soybeans, Albert Lea Seed also has many varieties of oats, wheat, barley, rye, alfalfa and other crops.

They have a garden store in Albert Lea where people can buy seeds and bedding plants as well. The store is staffed with master gardeners that are professionally trained in horticulture, making it a valuable resource to the community.

Albert Lea Seed was originally called Wedge Nursery, and owned by a family of the same name. In 1923, Lou Ehrhardt, who was related to the Wedge family through marriage, purchased the business side of the company. Since then, the business has been passed down through generations, going from Lou to his son, George, and eventually to his son, Mac. The current generation of the company is made up of members of the Erhardt family as well as other employees and owners.

Since the beginning, Albert Lea Seed has taken a customer-first approach to doing business. They continue to follow Lou Ehrhardt’s motto of “Customers are not an interruption.”

The employees at the company strive to build good-will toward fellow employees, vendors and customers.

Ehrhardt said that they approach selling their products “believing that people have good intentions,” and help them come to a solution that’s fair to everybody, whether or not they end up buying something from Albert Lea Seed.

“I like the people I work with… my peers and employees,” Mac Ehrhardt said. “I really like the farmers. My dad always said that the best part of working here is the farmers and he was correct.. You have to take it seriously because it’s their (the farmers’) livelihood… you don’t want to take that lightly.”

Farming has evolved over 100 years. One of the big differences is that more and more farms are consolidating, leading to larger farms and fewer farmers.

Albert Lea Seed has continued to adapt to these changes. Although they do a lot of their business through their website, they still take time for old-school advertising and business. They send out 30,000 seed catalogs to farmers every year.

Recently, Albert Lea Seed took ownership of Blue River Organic Seed and integrated the company and its employees into their business. This addition means that the company has more employees, some located in places like Iowa or Wisconsin.

In August of this year, Brett Bell became the president and CEO of Albert Lea Seed.

He is excited about the changes the company will have in the future.

“In an effort to better serve customers and drive greater business efficiency we are working through a significant upgrade of our core software operating system,” Bell said. “This will also serve to help us grow into the future. We are taking a hard look at how we organize our employee team to improve both customer and employee experience.”

He also said that helping the company grow to serve employees and customers more effectively is one of his favorite parts of his job.