By Joe Kertzman, managing editor, Badger Common’Tater
A new grower member of the Wisconsin Potato & Vegetable Growers Association (WPVGA), Chris Anderson of Thunderstruck Farms became involved in the industry because of neighbors helping neighbors, and his ability to build stainless equipment, machines, vehicle and implement parts, and even catwalks and conveyors.
Chris’s introduction to the WPVGA came around the same time as an interview with Rod Beggs of Midwestern Potatoes, who was showing off his freshly fabricated bin-filling line that meets Wal-Mart’s new packaging requirements for boxing 5-pound bags of potatoes.
“Rod and I graduated from high school together and have been buddies for a long time. He wanted a bin filler built,” Chris relates. “I also built a box stacker and pallet feed for him.”
“He put a new auto grader in, and it’s 8 feet in the air,” he adds, “so we had to disassemble the line, rebuild a section, and reassemble it to fit. I even built some conveyors and a catwalk system for him.”
Beggs sold the prototype bin-filling line to the Soik’s of Myron Soik & Sons, and Chris is currently building a crate washer for Helbach Farms that washes and sanitizes the crates in which little potatoes are stored.
