Company Profile
Hanson Silo Co.storage

Reprinted from Grain Journal July/August 2018 Issue

Hanson Silo was founded in 1916 in Lake Lillian, MN by Emil Hanson, a local farmer who was looking for a better silo for himself and other farmers. Hanson was in the market for a silo for his farm but found that most silos in the area were poorly constructed, due to an abundance of dirt and clay in the sand, which resulted in poor concrete for the construction of these silos. His goal was to manufacture an improved silo at the best price with the lowest upkeep.

“My great grandfather, Emil Hanson, was a farmer in Minnesota, and he had a plan to make stronger concrete than what was available at other places, and he did that through washed sand,” recalls Mike Hanson, director of business development for Hanson Silo. “They’d have two guys with a horse and a bucket and then scoop it out of a nearby lake and were making concrete with washed sand before it became popularized.” Washed concrete sand is now used by concrete manufacturers around the world.

For more than 100 years and through four generations, the Hanson family has been involved with agriculture and has grown to symbolize quality, economy, and dependability. “Our company has definitely responded to the needs of farmers and cooperatives over the years, so I’d say our success was largely based on market-driven growth as we adapted with the changing economies of scale and the times,” he says.

Today, Hanson Silo is a national leader in concrete flat storage systems. From temporary grain storage systems to engineered multi-million-bushel automated grain buildings, the company has handled projects for many different types of elevators across the country.

Hanson believes the company has been successful over the years due to its ability to sell the same product across different markets. In other words, the same panels that are used in grain storage can be used in fertilizer storage or warehousing other commodities.

“We’ve been able to diversify into other bulk markets besides grain – fertilizer definitely is the second largest," he says. "Customers have been able to save quite a bit on costs by doing the building on piers and then putting the walls on the inside and letting us do the containment of the load,” he adds.

Another differentiator for Hanson Silo is that it can ship out large orders to customers quickly, thanks to the fact that it houses more than 100 different molds in-house. As time becomes an ever-more valuable commodity, agility becomes a big selling point in business – as does ease of service.

“We have dedicated resources to specific industries, so that from the presale side all the way through the delivery and installation, you won’t work with a different company that has the same know-how that we do,” Hanson explains.

He says the company’s extensive experience working within the industry and dedication to service gives customers confidence in their ability to get the job done. “It’s like hitting the 'Easy' button." c

In the grain industry, Hanson Silo is known best for its grain storage walls. The company’s bunkers are available in round, oval, rectangular, or hybrid configurations and can be built on top of its grain reclaim tunnels, which saves time, money, and headaches when unloading grain bunkers.

“Our new flagship bunker is a 16-foot-high, pre-fabricated wall that sets up in three days, so customers can get 2.8 million bushels with no footings required.”

For customers without a lot of extra space to build on,Hanson's Fix-a-Flat program includes all new concrete walls up to 16-feet-high in old storage areas often reusing existing equipment. Customers see the value in this, because they can add 1 million bushels in the same footprint by growing vertically rather than horizontally. Also, the company’s flat storage bunker walls have a longer useful life than galvanized steel walls and wood walls. In fact, Hanson says upgrading old facilities and replacing steel walls has been a growing part of the company’s business in recent years.

“Building divider walls is a big market for us. They’ll have a flat storage building and then want a portable divider in there,” he explains.

New in 2019 will be the company’s dry cast aeration tunnels that Hanson says install “in no time and save a lot of labor versus trying to pour these onsite.”