business backgrounder | industry
Still Growing
At 80, Ag Supply Co. in Wenatchee is still going strong and growing,
focusing on safety, constant development of their employees and
service to their customers (who also happen to own the company).
Brian Mittge
This agricultural co-op is working to solidify its next generation of leadership as it enters
its ninth decade. Its business model is solid: providing petroleum and propane to the upper
Central Washington area’s orchardists, cattle ranchers, city families with chickens in the
backyard and urban refugees living off the grid.
Ag Supply Co. turned 80 on Sept. 19, but this Wenatchee-based
cooperative is quite spry for its age.
In fact, you might say it’s in the midst of a bit of a renaissance. It has completely wiped out its debts, focused its product
line and is actively cultivating the next generation of leaders by
bringing insights from its front-line employees into swift and
profitable practice.
The customer-owned co-op just opened its sixth retail outlet,
its first west of the Cascade Mountains. Its other main enterprise
Al Sanow and Gina Lopez of Ag Supply Co.
54 association of washington business
— petroleum and propane distribution — does brisk business
delivering to the area’s orchards, fruit processors and urban refugees living off the grid in the hills of north-central Washington.
The company has changed with the times. It once ran a chemical and fertilizer business. They did fruit trucking. They had
two convenience stores. All have gone by the wayside as Ag Supply refocused.
Success, General Manager Al Sanow said, comes down to this:
“Do what we know how to do and do it better.”