BRANDT to build specialty products manufacturing plant here

Construction set to begin this summer, with opening 3Q 2024 

  • The BRANDT plant will have state-of-the-art product filling and packaging equipment, including lifting “robots” and automated assembly lines.
    The BRANDT plant will have state-of-the-art product filling and packaging equipment, including lifting “robots” and automated assembly lines.
  • With nearly 100,000 square feet of space, the new BRANDT plant will have warehousing and storage room for raw materials, packaging supplies and finished products. The vast majority of products to be produced will be crop nutrition products and adjuvants.
    With nearly 100,000 square feet of space, the new BRANDT plant will have warehousing and storage room for raw materials, packaging supplies and finished products. The vast majority of products to be produced will be crop nutrition products and adjuvants.
  • The BRANDT plant will result in 15-20 new jobs that will fall under the Team BRANDT employment structure. Jobs will include logistics managers, forklift drivers, packaging line operators, loaders and quality control managers.
    The BRANDT plant will result in 15-20 new jobs that will fall under the Team BRANDT employment structure. Jobs will include logistics managers, forklift drivers, packaging line operators, loaders and quality control managers.
  • This artist’s rendering offers an initial look at the 100,000 sq. ft. facility planned for the Mission Critical site in Aurora. This view shows the docking area facing to the south, which means Highway 14 would be at the top of the image.
    This artist’s rendering offers an initial look at the 100,000 sq. ft. facility planned for the Mission Critical site in Aurora. This view shows the docking area facing to the south, which means Highway 14 would be at the top of the image.

    An Illinois-based company known as a leading retailer of professional agronomic services and manufacturer of specialty ag products will soon be planting its flag in Aurora.
    Founded in 1953 by Glen Brandt and his sister, Evelyn Brandt Thomas, the BRANDT company’s mission then as now is to help growers become more profitable. After an initial visit to Aurora last fall, which lead to months of discussions and eventual negotiations with the Aurora Development Corporation, the company announced plans in early May to break ground on a new production facility in Aurora later this summer. That facility is expected to open for production in the third quarter of 2024, creating 15-20 full-time jobs on the front end, with the potential to eventually grow to 30-40 full-time and seasonal jobs.
    The facility to be built on the ADC’s Mission Critical site, located on the east side of Highway 14 near the “Welcome to Aurora” sign, is designed to be nearly 100,000 sq. ft. in size. The company purchased a 20-acre parcel in the south-central portion of the 135-acre site fronting Highway 14, with an option to buy 10 additional acres to the east.
    “We are thrilled to break ground for this new plant in such a key strategic location,” said Bill Engel, BRANDT executive vice president. “When this plant comes online, we’ll be able to better serve our existing and new customers in the upper Great Plains.”
    As explained to and approved by both the Aurora Planning Commission and Aurora City Council, this plant will generate traffic of approximately 10 to 20 trucks per day, all running during daylight hours. Products will be mixed and stored on site, with some packaged into 250-gallon totes and some loaded directly onto bulk tankers.
    Though BRANDT officials announced the project and designed the Aurora plant, the logo on the building will reflect a new entity, a name that has not yet been announced. Those details are expected in the coming weeks.

    Why Aurora?
    Headquartered in Springfield, Ill., BRANDT traces its history back to a nearby rural community, Pleasant Plains, Ill., where a production facility similar to the one soon to be built in Aurora still operates. Asked what prompted the decision to expand operations to Hamilton County, Engel said it made logistical sense, citing a growing customer base in the Great Plains region.
    “Our business over the last five years has really evolved out that direction with a couple different entities that we’ve been involved with,” he explained. “Therefore, we saw a need to have another production site closer to that business.”
    In addition, Engel noted, lessons learned during the pandemic caused BRANDT executives to consider the need for a second production site.
    “The pandemic made us all think about things in another light,” he said. “Currently, our Midwest production is all done in one location, that being Pleasant Plains, Ill., and the idea that a plant could be totally shut down for whatever reason, albeit a pandemic or catastrophe, really gave us pause to think, what would we do? This gives us some flexibility and some security that we will have production capabilities in the vast Midwestern corn and soybean growing areas, which is absolutely essential to us.”
    Engel went on to say that initial impressions of the Aurora community also helped confirm the decision to build here.
    “We could have gone basically anywhere in the eastern half of Nebraska, but after visiting Aurora and working with that group (ADC subcommittee) it just made it an easier decision,” he said.

    Core product
    Once completed, the facility will produce the full line of BRANDT’s specialty ag products, including its flagship product technologies -- BRANDT Smart System, BRANDT Manni-Plex and BRANDT EnzUp. Engel explained that the foundation products are based around foliar nutrition.
    “This is basically a fertilizer that’s applied to a growing crop, an already established crop if you will,” he said. “We have found that it’s become very popular to spray a fungicide on corn in fairly late stages and many people apply a boron application at the same time that they do that fungicidal application. Some of that’s done by air, some of it’s done by high-clearance sprayers, but again, that type of nutrition is sprayed on living crops.
    Once operational, the plant will join BRANDT’s network of specialty formulations manufacturing plants distributed across the US. Today, BRANDT operates plants in Pleasant Plains, Ill.; Avon Park, Fla.; Logan, Utah; Fresno, Calif.; and Visalia, Calif. 
    “This is our first ‘clean-sheet’ plant in the US for many, many years,” Engel noted. “We’re planning to implement the latest technologies and include process best practices to create a state-of-the-art facility. Our goal is to build and operate the most efficient BRANDT plant right here in Aurora.”