Back in 1938, Charles and Dorothy Fischer of Shelby County decided to start selling hybrid seed corn to make some extra money for their farm. 86 years later, their family’s company is still growing and going strong.
“My grandmother was probably the progressive business woman of her time, but that was a different time then, so my grandpa was the face of the operation,” says Bryan Fischer of Fischers Food Grade, Seeds, and Farms based near Shelbyville. He says his grandparents found success pretty quickly selling their brand of seed corn during the Great Depression.
“My grandfather was in a competition that they would have in those days called the World Corn King. It would be someone that could get the best ten-ear sample—and he won the competition six times—in 1940, 1949, 1950, 1952, 1956, and 1963. After the sixth time they made him a judge. After that, he couldn’t drive customers off with a stick!”
Years later when Charles Fischer’s sons were managing the farm and the company, they decided expand into food-grade grain production and processing in the 1980s.
“Somebody wanted to know if we could supply some corn for a corn chip company, but in the 1980’s, corn chips weren’t quite as popular as they are today, so it seemed like a strange thing to do,” he says. “We started doing one load a week, which was probably about all we could have done anyway, and it helped our business with some cash flow throughout the year since selling seed was more of a seasonal thing. That’s where Fishers Food Grade got its birth.”
Today, Bryan says his family’s company is helping to feed the world.
“We clean white and yellow food grade corn and sell it to people that make corn chips, cereal, tortillas, a little bit of bourbon—but most of it is snack food and cereal stuff. Most of it is domestic business, but we do export some food grade corn to Japan, South Korea, and Egypt. We also do food grade soybeans—most of those are actually exports. We raise non-GMO food grade soybeans that are mostly for either tofu or soy sauce in Asia.
In fact, Bryan says you don’t have to look too hard in your local grocery store to find products that originate from Fischers in Shelby County.
“Probably the easiest one to find would be General Mills cereal,” he says. “If you get some of the General Mills cereals made with corn, that would come from here.”
No doubt Charles and Dorothy would be extremely proud of their family’s business today. Charles passed away in 1982, while Dorothy passed in 2003—but their legacy lives on.
Even though Bryan is the third generation from the Fischer family to have a hand in the business, he says it may be several years before the fourth generation becomes involved.
“Most of them are too young to know yet. My youngest son expresses interest that this is what he wants to do. He says he’s going to Purdue to study Ag and he’s coming back here to work. I think my brother, Brad, has a few kids like that too. I don’t know what my sister Brittany’s daughters are going to do, so I think there will be someone come back, but all of the kids are still trying to get through grade school, middle school, and high school for the most part,” says Bryan.
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Click below to hear Bryan Fischer share the story of Fischers Food Grade, Seeds, and Farms in Shelby County, Indiana.
