August 2009, Cover Stories
Seeds of Plenty
For more than a century, Jung Seed Company has been a supplier of choice for gardeners around the country
Richard “Dick” Zondag was at an industry event when a man asked a most unusual question.
“He wanted to know if everyone in Randolph owned a seed company,” says Zondag, president of Jung Seed Company.
Though the answer was, of course, no, it wasn’t a completely off-the-wall question. Randolph is indeed home to eight different seed and plant catalogs, and about nine million copies of those catalogs are generated each growing season from this Wisconsin town of 2,000, so the question wasn’t as odd as it might first seem.
“They’re all ours,” admits Zondag. “It’s not something that we hide; it’s not a big secret. We do have our own zip code, though.”
Fertile grounds
So whether gardeners plan their gardens using Totally Tomatoes, rely on Roots and Rhizomes for their perennials or simply order from the flagship J.W. Jung Seed Co. catalog, they’re all ordering from a company that was founded nearly 103 years ago in a rural Wisconsin farmhouse by Zondag’s grandfather, John W. “J.W.” Jung.
“From an early age, he loved seeds and growing plants, and marched with a firm determination – that was not always easy to live with – toward his goal of supplying the gardeners of this country with high quality products at reasonable prices so they could enjoy the miracle of growing,” the late Wilfred Jung wrote in a tribute to his father.
J.W. Jung was one of 10 children, and one of his childhood chores was to help his mother tend the family garden. As a child, he was also fascinated by the way the Salzer Seed Co. of La Crosse sold its seeds: The company would send out postcards announcing the day its railroad car would pull into town and local residents would stop at the parked car to select and purchase their seeds. As a young man, he later worked for an Illinois seed company – a place, he noted, where he learned how not to run a company – and in 1906, he returned to Randolph to start his own company, initially setting up shop in his parents’ farmhouse.
Jung printed his own black-and-white catalogs on a small hand press and advertised for customers in farming magazines, paying for the ad space by writing gardening articles for the publications. Within a few years, the business grew and relocated into downtown Randolph. During the next few decades, its inventory expanded to include farm seeds and nursery stock. Jung’s sons and a son-in-law, Tuenis “Tueny” Zondag formally joined the business – and many other family members helped out – and the company began to diversify, creating the affiliated Seed Service in 1952 to serve area farmers who purchased large quantities of seeds. A second farming subsidiary followed in 1961 and in 1997, the family completely separated its Jung Seed Genetics farming operation from the gardening side of the business, though they remain physically adjacent to each other.
“While we have test gardens here in Randolph to try new and different things, we no longer grow seed here,” notes Dick Zondag of the gardening business. “We rely on four or five large seed companies and about 10 smaller ones for our seeds.”
It was Zondag’s father that convinced J.W. Jung to remodel a room at the company Randolph headquarters and put up a redwood fence around the front parking spaces to create the company’s first retail Jung Garden Center in 1955. Since then, the retail arm of the business has grown to five locations in central and south central Wisconsin.
Between its eight different catalogs the company currently offers about 6,000 varieties of vegetables and flowers, plus imported bulbs, nursery stock, and gardening, canning and cooking equipment.
Continued harvest
While home gardeners have relied on Jung for more than a century, it’s an industry with its ups and downs. In our current economic climate, the entire mail order gardening industry is seeing resurgence.
“Any time there is a small recession, our sales tend to go up,” says Zondag who estimates that sales are up about 15 percent when averaged among the company’s eight different catalogs. “The ’92 recession didn’t really make much of a difference because it didn’t last that long. But this one hurts; people are losing jobs and trying to save their money. Our sales are up on anything having to do with food: Seeds, plants and fruit trees.”
He also says that a growing consciousness of where and how food is grown and sourced is also having an impact on the industry. An interest in organics is also inspiring consumers to try their hand at gardening.
“Some people really obsess about that,” he says. “Others simply know that the food they grow themselves tastes better.”
The mail-order gardening industry follows the same general marketing strategy, and it’s one that has proven to be quite successful.
“We try to get our catalogs out right after Christmas when people have money to spend and the time to sit down with the catalog,” says Zondag. “We do a second blast in mid-February. That’s pretty standard. We have solid mailing lists and good customers; we don’t really do any prospecting.”
But it’s not an industry without struggle.
“When I took over, I maintained that we either had to grow or be part of someone else’s growth,” says Zondag, who has pursued acquisition as part of Jung’s continued strategy. The company’s catalog acquisitions have helped it target specific, niche gardening markets.
Technology also has impacted the industry, with both positive and negative results. Computers have made catalog production easier and faster (Jung printed its own catalogs in-house until 1987) and horticultural advances have increased the variety of plants available to the home gardener.
Genetics is also playing a role and the continued controversy surrounding GMOs (genetically modified organisms) is not an easy one to navigate.
“It’s not black and white,” says Zondag of the issue. “Genetics has helped create a strain of rice with protein in it for undeveloped countries where people would normally not get proteins in their diets. That’s a GMO.”
He says, however, that the mail-order gardening industry is more a fraternity than anything else, and that the companies tend to be more collaborative than competitive.
“It’s the ‘big box’ stores that are eating our lunch,” admits Zondag. “That’s one of the issues we’re trying to collectively address. Gardening takes time – people are accustomed to instant gratification – but they can go to one of these stores and buy plants instead of having to grow them from seed.”
Keeping tradition alive
Still, there’s a lot to be said for tried-and-true business approaches. A critical component of the company is its workforce.
“I am not Jung Seed Company,” says Zondag. “Growth can’t happen if you don’t have great people, and we do. They’re like an extended family.”
And while technology has had a definite impact on how the company goes about its business, many of its critical elements have remained the same since the company was first established. Seeds are counted on efficient, antique machinery; a cadre of employees rotates around the business on a seasonal basis and the basics of pulling and packing seed and live plant orders remains essentially the same.
As a member of the fourth generation, Nathan Zondag has been around the business since he could toddle as a small child. Now a college graduate, he is also following in his father’s footsteps by officially working in all areas of the company, from the bare root room to the offices. Nathan currently serves the company as seed division manager, his brother, Marcus, has just joined the company as well.
“Nathan’s moving along a little faster than I did,” admits Dick Zondag.
Though he may be on the fast track, Nathan Zondag admits to learning quite a bit, both through osmosis as a child and in official on-the-job experience.
“I really do admire my dad and grandfather and have learned a lot from both of them,” he says. “My grandfather was a real straight shooter – he’d never give you a line …. he’d always tell you the truth. And he always said to treat employees the way you wanted to be treated.”
But one of the top lessons the fourth generation may learn is the view that Dick Zondag has maintained through his decades at Jung Seed Company.
"It’s a great business to be in,” he says simply. “It’s the best business in the world.”
Laurie Arendt is editor of CRW. She can be reached at crweditor@crwmag.com