Illinois Alumni Tour

Last night The Maschhoff's hosted a University of Illinois Alumni program at their facilities shown below.  I rode a bus with Ken Maschhoff as the tour guide.  He provided us with a candid commentary on their business and its history.  The high spots of the tour included a stop at their feed mill, a stop at the home farm, and a stop at their research facility.  We were able to go inside the research facility and listen to the University of Illinois Faculty, Staff, and Graduate students that work there.  The Maschhoff's have facilities all over the Midwest and they are the largest privately held pork farm in the United States and maybe in the world.  There are bigger pork production operations, but they are run by publicly held corporations.  I am persuaded that the Maschhoff's probably know more of the finer points of animal feeding, pork genetics and animal welfare than anyone else in the business.  They believe that they are the best at what they do. 

They appear to have a unique partnership with the University of Illinois in terms of the number of people involved in the relationship.  They give the University the chance to do cutting edge research in feed and genetics.  Obviously the Maschhoff's benefit from the relationship, but so does the rest of the agricultural world.  Thanks to out host. 

Their soon to be expanded headquarters is shown below.  We met and had our meal in the conference area of the building. 

The Maschhoff's