Adjuvant Supplier Expands

Exacto Inc. has significantly increased its capacity to develop, manufacture, and distribute ag chemical adjuvant products through a move to larger quarters custom-designed for lean manufacturing and quality control.

Exacto, whose adjuvants and surfactants are sold by other companies under private labels, doubled its space by the recent move to a 50,000-square-foot facility in Sharon, WI, from its original location about 20 miles southeast in Richmond, IL, says Diana Braun, Exacto’s president.

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The company works in the wholesale market, creating and selling adjuvants and surfactants for its customers’ private labels. Its customers market into agriculture, forestry, utilities and rights of way, highly managed turf, home and garden, range and pasture and vegetation management. Exacto products improve the action of pesticides and other vegetation-control chemicals, and increase application efficiency.

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Exacto has seen steady growth since it was founded in 1981 when it initially focused on formulas that enhance drift reduction properties of crop protection products. Its product lineup has expanded broadly since then, and its clients have come to rely on Exacto for its niche packaging capabilities, technical and scientific expertise in product development, in-house label design as well as its marketing expertise.

“We have added product lines, packaging capabilities, storage and blending capacities,” Braun says. “As we have expanded, we have run into efficiency issues at Richmond. We have outgrown that facility, which we built and operated from for the last 17 years.”

Along with the efficiency gains from the interior layout, the company expects to benefit from the 30+ acres of land around the building. Plans call for adding a greenhouse and for planting crops on some of the acreage. Those enhancements would give Exacto even greater research capabilities, says Frank Sexton, technical services manager for Exacto.

Dave Langemo, marketing and sales development manager for Exacto, has seen a growing awareness of the benefits of adjuvants for chemicals used in agriculture and vegetation management.

“End users have come to realize the agronomic benefits adjuvants bring to their spray operations,” he says. “In our business, performance-enhancing substances are more accepted than ever. We see our customers using value-added adjuvants as a way to distinguish themselves in the market, and we’re confident that our new facility will bolster our abilities to make new discoveries that will meet our customers’ needs.”

While the majority of its clients are in the U.S., Exacto also serves customers in Canada, Australia, Asia, Europe and Central America. The company is online at www.exactoinc.com.

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