Iowa’s Secretary of Ag Makes Local Visit

Iowa Secretary of Agriculture Bill Northey (left foreground) and Oskaloosa Food Products President Blair Van Zetten (right foreground)get prepared to tour the Oskaloosa facility (photo D.Hubbard)

Bill Northey, Iowa’s Secretary of Agriculture, made a stop in Oskaloosa to take a tour of Oskaloosa Food Products around 9 am yesterday morning.

Northey was taken on a personal tour of the Oskaloosa Food Products Corporation facility by President Blair Van Zetten. Van Zetten went through the process of how they process eggs to be consumed by vendors who, in turn, make those products that are found world wide. Every step of the process was discussed; from their newly renovated lab for testing for contaminants to the egg product, to their technology used for cracking and separating eggs, all the way to the finished products; such as dried, liquid and frozen eggs.

Every year Oskaloosa Food Products must pass IFS certification in order to sell it’s products to consumers. On top of those standards, the USDA is on hand to inspect the eggs and the products as they pass through the facility. An on site sewage treatment plant helps to keep the environment safe by processing the waste generated, such as untreated water that is dehydrated from the eggs, before reaching the city’s own sewer system.

Van Zetten was able to show Secretary Northey some of their more premium products. Customers of certain gourmet or high end foods will demand these products in their quest to provide the consumer with some of the best tasting products they can make. The process for these products are more labor intensive and takes considerably more time, in comparison, than the more automated process that Oskaloosa Food Products also provides.

When the tour completed I asked Secretary Northey about his visit, and his thoughts on his tour. Northey answered, “A lot of stuff I hadn’t seen before. Very interesting in the way they process their eggs and certainly all the food safety aspects of that.”

Secretary Northey  said that it was “Very Impressive” how there was a crew there today testing, even with a tour happening.

“It’s hard to see what’s going on behind those walls, but it’s very sophisticated.” Secretary Northey said of the Oskaloosa Food Products facility here in Oskaloosa. “Products that go into all kinds of everyday products that we use here (U.S.), and are used around the world.”

Secretary Northey does his best to make it to all 99 counties in the State of Iowa every year. With this latest stop in Oskaloosa and his subsequent stop to attend Ajinomoto Heartland’s 25th Anniversary, he then ended his day with a stop in Sigourney for a town hall style meeting there. This was his first stop in the county this year, “but we may be back before the end of the year.”

“This is a county that has a lot of stuff going on in it, and it’s fun to get here.” said Secretary Northey of Oskaloosa and Mahaska County. “I’ve talked to Blair many different times about his plant down here. It’s great to be able to see the plant.”

The Secretary then got on the road to visit Fremont Farms and then make his way to Eddyville for the Ajinomoto Heartland 25th Anniversary. This gave me an opportunity to catch up with Van Zetten, Owner of Oskaloosa Food Products Corp.

“I started with my dad in 1975, and my father started the company in 1938 and he passed away in 1980 and I took over the company in 1980.” Van Zetten says of his company and the family legacy.

“Our eggs have ended up on the President’s table, the Queen’s table,” says Van Zetten about their products. “Certain different types of products that we make, that we sell into Europe, go into different applications that they use over there for pastries. So those pastries are served at those different events.”

Oskaloosa Food Products has been a fixture of Oskaloosa since 1938. It continues to grow and evolve along with it's customers. (photo D.Hubbard)

I made the comment that it is amazing how Oskaloosa does reach out into the world, and Van Zetten quickly agreed saying, “This is an amazing story, you have Clow, you have Vermeer, you have Pella Corp., you have MUSCO, you have Paslode, Oskaloosa Food Products, you’ve got Cargill. You have a lot of companies in a very small area.” Van Zetten went on to say how he believed the products from these companies had most certainly found their way, not only to most assuredly every state in the union, but also into nearly every county and town as well.

“When you think about it; from a little area, not just us, but the whole little area here, it’s kind of amazing.” Van Zetten was saying about the Oskaloosa area. He went on to give a story that gives a great example of this. “I’ll never forget it, we were with some customers and brokers and we were in Baltimore Maryland. We were having this conversation just like right now (the conversation between Van Zetten and myself), and I was telling them how many products were made in our area that were probably in every state, county, and I’ll bet you on almost every grocery store shelf. Just as we were talking about that, we pulled up to a stoplight and next to us was a Clow valve truck that had all Clow fire hydrants. Then we happened to go down the road, about a half mile further, and there was a Pella Window Store and then about a half mile down further there was a baseball field that had to be lit by MUSCO.”

I wanted to know how the visit went from his perspective as the owner of the facility. “I think it went great. Bill Northey is a really sharp guy, he’s on the stick and we’re very fortunate to have somebody of his caliber in the office that he’s in. Great individual.”

Van Zetten talks of future plans for Oskaloosa Food Products, “We’re always growing. You can never stand still, you’ve always got to change, the world makes you change.”

“The question, that was on many Oskaloosa residents minds, during last years egg debacle was how it impacted our local people at Oskaloosa Food Products. It had a big impact because there’s two different types of markets. The processing market which we’re in, and then there’s the graded market.” Van Zetten went on to explain the market, such as the graded market that sells eggs to grocers. “When new laws went into place and the issue with one of the largest producers of eggs in the nation all struck at about the same time, the effect was to drive eggs to breakers such as Oskaloosa Food Products. The problem is, when there was that large amount of egg production going on, such as nearly any industry, supply and demand drives the pricing. The market became saturated, and then suffered from huge price declines, in turn causing places such as Oskaloosa Food Products to work below the cost of production. So in a down turned economy that made for a rough time not only for Osky’s plant, but the egg industry in general.” “You go on. You have these cycles; you got to try to make it through the cycles; there are good cycles and bad cycles.”

I would like to thank Blair for allowing us at Osky News the opportunity to tour with Secretary Northey and himself. It was very interesting and eye opening to see the technology that goes into making products that help to feed the world. All from right here in Oskaloosa.