J-Six Enterprises & Fairview Mills

There can be many sayings that can be drawn from opportunity. Luck is when opportunity knocks, and most are inclined to answer the door. If opportunity doesn’t knock, then maybe it’s time to build a door. That is essentially what led the J-Six Enterprises to opening up their business to a new opportunity in Fairview Mills.
Taking a moment to speak on J-Six Enterprises as whole and Fairview Mills was Co-Owner Troy Kramer. From starting off as a livestock farm, leading to elevators and more. Kramer believes that keeping eyes and ears open for opportunities, even small ones, can lead to greater things as he spoke on J-Six saying, “I can sum up it in a nutshell of what it became what it is today. We started with livestock farm, raised up hogs for a decent time. Grew that business, and it got to a point that we were consuming about as much milo as the local cooperatives could secure. Next thing you know we’re buying elevators to accumulate milo for the hog business.”
Kramer continued, “These elevators had feed mills attached, we tried running feed mills, it was a good go, lessons learned from our mistakes and then we started looking at other ventures. Got into manufacturing wine premixes for a local feed company. While we were doing that, we were approached and asked if we had any interest in manufacturing pet food. We started doing that, and honestly it was at that point when things took off for the company. As far as taking a big step in growth with inside Fairview Mills, all this time, we’re really trying to be as diversified as we can. Trying to keep expanding the livestock side as well.”
“Our main job that we do today outside of Fairview Mills is being a service provider. We provide services of blending, grinding, bagging and transloading. Basically, doing what others aren’t able to do at this point of their business yet. Along the while got into the cattle business, and ranching. Still working on diversifying there as well. We somehow got in the trucking division also, run about 80 trucks, and little over 500 trailers. We’re not the most conventional truck line, we mainly help ourselves and that expanded into the corn cob business.”
Somehow through all the years, the effort of keeping the eyes and ears open to opportunities is something that J-Six Enterprises hasn’t been keen on missing if it could be helped.
For explaining one division and it’s importance, like Troy says, getting the most out of everything is something that is always practiced, Fairview Mills is proof of that as he would explain, “The product coming out of Washington (Kansas), we got carriers, we have plenty of uses for lawn applicants or feed, but that product there goes a long way in helping with remediation or cleaning up spills. Usually with oil or gas wells whenever they finish up drilling. For example, we were fortunate, that though it was not an ideal situation, at the time with the oil spills at Washington, our product was a big help in restoring that area. All of this expansion, really came by a customer we had worked with on the pet side of business and they mentioned that they buy a lot of product made from cob. That intrigued us, so as we looked into it more, we had thought that maybe we can use field corn and just collect the cob after the combine. It came down to networking and having an open mind. That’s essentially a thimble of what the Fairview Mills and J-Six enterprises is.”
The business, separated by divisions but united in a shared sentiment, and family ties. The J-Six Enterprises is a company that relies on a group effort to have the success they do as Troy would explain, “We’re a family business, my brother John and his wife Jane founded the business in the 70s, their four children and myself now own the company. We’ve all got different roles, we’ve got about what we called six G-3, ‘third generation’ likes John’s grandkids or my nieces and nephews are looking to join the business as well. We try our best to take care of those who do work for us because it’s a lot of work. There’s always something to do and we appreciate the people that have come through to help our family get to where the business is today. No better feeling than knowing your family and members of the surrounding towns are able to help in a variety of ways.”