Product and Service Directory

Browse Companies  Browse Equipment

Company Profile
Walinga USA Inc.

Walinga USA Inc. • 800-466-1197 http://www.walinga.com

A LEADER IN BULK FEED BODIES AND PNEUMATIC CONVEYING EQUIPMENT

Reprinted from GRAIN JOURNAL March/April 2018 Issue

“Building Any Body For Anybody” – that was the slogan used in 1954 by Cornelius Walinga and his son-in-law, John Medemblik, when they started the Walinga Company in Fergus, ON, Canada. They began the business by handcrafting wooden truck bodies for local businesses.

“They saw a need that farmers and small companies had for bulk truck bodies in the feed and grain industry, so they started building them,” says Jonathan Medemblik,grandson of co-founder John Medemblik. He serves as marketing and advertising manager of Walinga USA Inc. based in Wayland, MI, the head office in the United States for the Canadian company.

Today, Walinga is still a family-owned and -operated company, employing approximately 275 employees in the United States and Canada. It is a leading North American manufacturer of transportation equipment and portable pneumatic conveying systems for grain, feed, and seed. Jonathan’s father, Terry, has worked for the company throughout his career, currently serving as director of sales andmarketing.

“My dad and I work from our Wayland office, but my uncles and several other family members work at our Canadian headquarters located in Guelph, ON,” says Jonathan.

When asked how the business has changed over the years,and how it has stayed the same, Jonathan says: “We’ve expanded with respect to the product lines we offer – bulk feed bodies, grain vacs, and pneumatic conveying systems – and we’ve added overseas sales. Also a big change is the technology involved in creating all of these products.

“We’ve stayed the same with respect to continuing to offer high-quality products and providing the best possible service for those products. We focus on what we do best – which is bulk feed bodies and pneumatic conveying systems – and we don’t get away from that too much.”

Six Locations

Walinga opened a U.S. head office in Caledonia, MI in the early 1980s, eventually moving in late 2006 to the current 12,000-sq.-ft. building in Wayland, where 27 employees are based.

“Wayland is our distribution center and head office in the United States,” says Jonathan. “We also do some light manufacturing here, but mostly we handle sales and service, and we keep an inventory of our pneumatic conveying systems. In addition, we have a parts and service facility in Sioux Center, IA, that serves the Midwest.”

The company has four sites in Canada. The headquarters in Guelph also serves as the manufacturing site for bulk feed bodies. Approximately 15 minutes away, at the company’s original site in Fergus, all pneumatic systems and grain vacs are manufactured. In 1991, a machining facility was opened in Carman, MB, where blowers and airlocks are manufactured. It also serves as a distribution and service center. A small parts and service shop is located in Davidson, SK.

How do employees at all six locations, as well as sales representatives and dealers around the world, stay connected and support each other in serving customers? “We communicate with each other and work together in many ways – in person, via phone, e-mail, Internet – and we also have monthly marketing meetings and annual management and sales meetings,” says Jonathan.

Dealer Network

“The majority of our business takes place in North America, but we also do a fair amount of business in Europe, Australia, and South America,” he says. “We have sales representatives and dealers across the United States and Canada and an overseas dealer network, which customers can easily find on our website at www.walinga.com.

“Having a comprehensive dealer network is relatively new to us. Over the last couple of years, we really started taking on dealers to market our products and to stock some equipment, so that the local market actually can see the equipment. Our extensive dealer network ensures that a company representative is available to customers at any time and virtually anywhere throughout Canada, the United States, the United Kingdom, Europe and Australia.”

Customer Satisfaction

Walinga has in-house design and engineering teams who work to keep up with new technological advances and incorporate them into its manufacturing process. “Our experienced engineering and design teams utilize the most current computer technology to develop state-of-the-art equipment, with the features and options needed to match the needs of our customers,” says Jonathan.

“From Walinga’s modest beginning over 50 years ago, we continue our commitment to providing customers with c the best service and quality in the industry. If something should happen, we bend over backwards to get our customer up and running again. Our company has one clear and simple mandate: the customer must be completely satisfied from initial contact, to delivery, to future service – we guarantee accessibility, professional expertise, and meticulous attention to detail.”

Products

Pneumatic conveyors or grain vacs – in capacities from 500 to 7,500 bph – typically are used for conveying corn, soybeans, or wheat from one point to another. Walinga’s Agri-Vac became available in 1977 and the Ultra-Vac in the 1980s, with a range of models and sizes developed over the years to meet growing needs.

“Our grain vacs are used by customers to move grain from a bin and load it into a semi trailer or vice versa. They also are used to clean out bins and flat storage buildings or anywhere you need to move grain from here to there,” says Jonathan.

“We like to highlight that our pneumatic conveyors are heavier-duty and more dependable than others, and they maintain a higher resale value. One thing our customers appreciate is all the standard features that are included in our equipment.”

Central vac dust control systems. “We started making these systems in the early 1990s, and it’s a fairly small but growing part of our business,” says Jonathan. “The concept is the same as central vac systems in the home, except these are industrial size and installed in grain elevators and feed mills. They are used for keeping the facilities clean, which is an important part of preventing dust explosions. They can be configured as a two, three, or multi-point pickup system. There aren’t a whole lot of systems on the market, but our dust collection systems are more compact than what you normally see, and our price is quite competitive.”

Bulk feed bodies. “Making truck bodies is where the company started, and it still makes up approximately 60% of our business,” says Jonathan. “The main use is for delivering feed from the feed mill to the customer, whether that’s a hog, dairy, or poultry farmer or a business.

“Over the years, the technology and efficiency have improved greatly. The amount of feed that can be hauled has increased, while the time it takes to load and unload has been reduced significantly. High-output trailers allow unloading much quicker than even just five or 10 years ago. Plus, today’s designs include a lot of new safety and user-friendly features.

“We believe that our feed trailers are the highest-quality option available on the market. Ours may be a little more expensive but for a good reason. We don’t skimp on components and we take pride in the quality of our products. And we offer a great warranty to back it up.”

Dedicated Employees

“We take pride in our dedicated employees and realize that the quality of our products depends on the quality of our employees,” says Jonathan. “We recognize that having a total commitment to quality is not only our inheritance, it is our foundation for the future. Therefore, it is important that our employees are happy with what they are doing, and we want their input on the products we are building.

“The industry is changing constantly, and we are always upgrading and coming up with new designs. This helps make Walinga a good and engaging, company to work for.”


About Walinga USA Inc.

Wayland, MI
800-466-1197
616-877-3470
http://www.walinga.com

View Company Profile →