Tuesday, March 04, 2008
Mill owners transition toward future
Flexibility has kept Big Spring Mill going while other mills have gone out of business, co-owner Bob Long said.
Panoramic photo
Alan Kim | The Roanoke Times
Big Spring Mill, in 360-degree view.
Over the years
- 1850: Joseph Pepper establishes what today is Big Spring Mill
- 1935: The Long family buys the mill and builds up an animal feed and family flour business
- 1954: The mill burns and is rebuilt
Video
Alan Kim | The Roanoke Times
ELLISTON -- Dave Long can remember when Montgomery County had more than a dozen dairy farms and supported four family-owned feed and flour mills.
Today he can count the number of local dairies on one white powdered hand, and Big Spring Mill, owned and operated by his family since 1935, is the only mill left standing.
Two generations of Longs -- who among them share two MBAs and an economics degree -- run this 158-year-old business, started in 1850 by Joseph Pepper of Lafayette to provide animal feed and baking flour to farming families.
Dave Long, 75, and his nephew, 54-year-old Bob Long, co-own the business and run it with Dave Long's son-in-law, Mark Ebel, 45.
Ebel, a native of the Washington, D.C., area, got "bitten by the entrepreneur bug, bad" and came to work at the mill after marrying Dave Long's daughter, Amy.
Together the men try to keep this old-fashioned business -- some experts say milling is the world's oldest industry -- alive.
Walk in any day of the week, and the guys can tell you what Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke has said about the economy. They can quote you today's price per barrel of crude oil. A 1990s-era computer upstairs in a dusty upstairs office keeps watch over the grain markets.
They know, for instance, that last year in July they could buy a bushel of wheat on the Chicago market for $5.50. This week, they're paying $15.
That, coupled with the weak American dollar, has pushed animal feed prices up $65 to $70 a ton, straining the budgets of farmers who have just suffered through a hay shortage and the worst drought in recent memory.
Add in rising real estate taxes, high fuel bills and a downturn in the economy, and the balance sheet looks precarious.
Every time a farmer decides to cut his losses and sell out, that's one fewer customer to buy Big Spring Mill's feed. Similar pressures contributed to the closing of S&M Milling of Christiansburg in 1999.
Even Vaughn's Mill, opened about 100 years ago in Floyd County's Indian Valley, has downsized in the past year, owner Greg Vaughn said.
"Seems like it gets worse every year. Feed is really high right now, and it's been really slow," Vaughn said. "But I guess we'll hold on as long as the people can afford to buy the feed."
When his brother quit the mill business last year, Vaughn had to cut back on the number of customers to whom he was delivering.
One of the contracts he cut loose was with Weathertop Farm in Floyd, a speciality producer of pasture-raised pork, poultry, eggs and meat rabbits. Farm owners Sarah and Cedric Shannon now have to get their feed from Big Spring Mill, Sarah Shannon said.
That change adds more than 80 miles to the farm's regular feed delivery and illustrates how the global economy is a daily reality for local businesses.
"At one time, when my dad was still living, this mill ran 24 hours," Dave Long said.
Today the mill's 25 employees work from 5 a.m. to 5 p.m. five days a week and a half-day on Saturday. The customer base used to be confined to within a 75-mile radius of Elliston. To be profitable today, Big Spring Mill distributes as far as West Virginia and ships flour as far north as New York.
This flexibility has kept Big Spring Mill going while other mills have gone out of business, Bob Long said.
"It's trying to appeal to a broader range of markets and, hopefully, changing as the market changes," he said.
The company provides feed, not just for dairy cows, but also for horses and rabbits. Fish farmers or owners of family fish ponds can buy their feed in Elliston. You can buy your dog food here, as well as buckwheat flour for those filling pancakes country people love to eat.
Ebel has other ideas for bringing the mill into the future. He just established wireless broadband and bought a new computer. He's working on the company's first Web site and crunching numbers to see whether mail order of the regionally famous flour products is a viable way to expand the company.
Biscuits and cornbread found at The Roanoker Restaurant in Roanoke, Country Cookin in Christiansburg and Gillie's Restaurant in Blacksburg are made from Big Spring Mill flours. Most local grocery stores carry the famous "Virginia's Best A No. 1" biscuit flour, seasoned flour and cornmeal.
Ebel said trading on the popularity of authentic regional foodstuffs could help make up some of the losses in the feed businesses. Already he's shipping 500 pounds of seasoned flour -- good for breading and making country gravy -- about every month to a chicken joint near New York City.
"I think the market demand is there," Ebel said. "But can I meet it?"
Ultimately, according to Ebel, the market economy will determine whether this landmark business can transition fast enough to meet the future.
