Fr om a K i t ch en Tabl e I d ea t o Par t n er sh i p w i t h Car gi l l , Feed L ogi st i cs i s Ch an gi n g Writ t en by: Connor Raborn
Years of experience tinkering and an offhand comment started Randall Schwartzentruber on the path to solving one of the major challenges of poultry farming. As co-founder and CEO of BinSentry, Schwartzentruber is pioneering a device that lets farmers know how much feed remains in their feed bins and when to schedule a feed delivery. A few years ago, when he was working as an automation programmer, Schwartzentruber was on assignment at a feed mill, when the mill owner commented on a universal issue of bin monitoring.
?He told me that every single feed mill around the world has the same challenge,? Schwartzentruber said. ?Once they produce and transport feed to farms and put it into the feed bins, they have no idea how much feed remains in those bins at any given time.? Oftentimes farmers will try to gauge the fullness of their bins by throwing rocks at the side of the bins or by hitting them with a rubber mallet. A solid sound?the bin?s still full there. A hollow sound?the feed level has fallen at least below that level. The difficulty in pinpointing when customers need more feed makes things harder for mills too, which are forced to be reactive to customers?needs instead of proactive. ?When you?re collecting that kind of data, coming in via phone calls from hundreds or thousands of customers, it?s impossible to operate your mill effectively,? Schwartzentruber said. ?They?re constantly having to wait for data to come in?bad data, at that sometimes.? At first, he couldn?t believe that there wasn?t already an available product like the one he?d started mentally building, one that could monitor feed levels from inside the bin. Hours of research showed him there was indeed a gap in the market. The solution started with Schwartzentruber at his kitchen table, studying hundreds of sensors he?d ordered from all over the world. BinSentry was officially founded in May 2017, and what was initially just Schwartzentruber and his idea has become 28 employees. The sensor itself, still in its first generation for now, uses the same type of technology
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