Vol. XII No. 3
May /June 2018
Serving Soil, Mulch, Compost & Wood Pellet Producers www.SoilandMulchProducerNews.com
NEWS
Attention Readers !
Photo courtesy of Colorbiotics
Are you looking for Products, Equipment or Services for your business? If so, please check out these leading companies advertised inside: Bagging / Wrapping Systems Amadas Industries – pg 15 Hamer-Fischbein – pg 23 Premier Tech Chronos – pg 24
Buildings & covers ClearSpan – pg 7
Compost Equipment/spreaders HCL Machine Works – pg 22
Grinders, Chippers & Screening Systems Action Equipment – pg 8 Amadas Industries – pg 15 Apollo Equipment – pg 16 Bandit – pg 14 CBI – pg 18 HogZilla – pg 22 Peterson – pg 10 Precision Husky – pg 9 Premier Tech Chronos – pg 24 Rotochopper Inc – pg 6 West Salem Machinery – pg 20
LoaD MeaSurINg SySteMS Loadscan – pg 13
Mulch Coloring Equipment/ Colorants AgriCoatings – pg 5 Amerimulch – pg 12 BASF – pg 2 Britton Industries – pg 19 CMC – pg 11 Earth Shades – insert Milagro – pg 16 T.H. Glennon – pg 21
Trommel Brushes Duff Brush – pg 22
truck measurement & ticketing systems Walz Scale – pg 17
wear parts
ArmorHog – pg 22 Grinder Wear Parts – pg 16
Mulch Coloring Equipment: An Investment That Will Increase Your Mulch Sales!
M
By P.J. Heller
att Smith wonders what he would be doing today if his company wasn’t selling colored mulch. “I’d probably not still be in the mulch business,” says Smith, chief executive officer of Smith Creek, Inc., in Borden, IN. Smith Creek got into the wholesale colored mulch business in the late 1990s and today its bagged colored mulch outsells natural mulch by as much as 95 percent. Bulk sales of colored mulch are 85 percent higher than natural mulch, Smith reports. Other mulch manufacturers report similar success selling colored mulches, particularly browns, reds and blacks. Fortunately for mulch producers, there is a wide variety of options to chose from when selecting a colorant system. Those options include stand-alone coloring systems some of which are transportable, horizontal grinders with optional or dedicated coloring systems, and injection pump systems that can be adapted to an existing grinder or trommel system. Sophisticated electronics on some units help minimize water and colorant usage. Many colorant equipment manufacturers, as well as other companies, offer a wide range of colorants in liquid or powder/granular form; with liquid-based colorants being the most commonly used. “In its simplest form, it’s like baking a cake,” says one longtime industry expert when
discussing colorizing mulch. “You’re just mixing contents and stirring it around so colorant is absorbed into the material. There’s a wide variety of delivery systems and it just depends on how sophisticated you want to be. It also depends on your volume and economics…” Understanding those delivery systems — and the actual costs and benefits associated with each — is crucial. “I would say the most critical thing mulch producers can do is to contact an industry expert and let them sit down and talk them through the process,” advises a spokesman for a leading colorant equipment company. That process includes discussing the various types of colorant systems, the market being served, production capabilities, how many colors to be produced, the wood source and the actual cost of each type of system. For example, adding a colorant pump and a spray bar to inject the color to an existing grinder may be a cost-effective solution for some mulch producers, especially those who want to test the market or who have excess capacity on their grinder. However, some of those cost savings may be offset by higher colorant and water usage compared to a stand-alone system. The greater moisture content in bagged products, for instance, could result in higher freight costs. Also essential is to have an operator closely monitoring the equipment to avoid overContinued on page 3