Perth East’s Nuhn Industries owner Dennis Nuhn inducted onto Agriculture Wall of Fame

A Perth East business owner who managed to transform his family’s blacksmith operation in Wartburg into a globally respected manure management-equipment manufacturing and design company is being honored as the Stratford Perth Museum’s 2023 honoree on its Agriculture Wall of Fame.

Owned and operated by Dennis Nuhn, Nuhn Industries Ltd. can trace its roots back three generations to Simon Nuhn, who started the family’s blacksmith shop in 1902. Simon Nuhn’s son, Wilfred Nuhn, took over the business just after the Second World War, and Dennis Nuhn began working with the company in 1962 when he was just 17 years old.

“I started doing repair work in a small shop. First, we’d do it in our old blacksmith shop and then we had like a two-car garage, and we did repairs on other equipment like cultivators and that from various companies,” Nuhn said. “So I learned a lot from what was breaking on other people’s equipment.

“What struck me as odd was this one company had a cultivator, and they had a tongue on it and they broke. So we would (fix that) as a welding job but, 10 years later, they’re still making the tongue exactly the same. So we decided we wouldn’t do that. Say we sell a new machine, we’d come up with a better idea. When we make that machine, the farmer will get the new and improved (design).”

Following five expansions of the Wartburg shop over roughly two decades and the discovery a successful niche market – manure-management equipment – ​​the company moved in 1982 to a new 1,393-square-metre (15,000-square-foot) plant at the west end of Sebringville. The Sebringville plant kept growing over the next several decades and now has a footprint of more than 12,200 square meters (132,000 square feet).

While Nuhn Industries’ signature red manure tanks can be seen all over rural Ontario and across the country, the company has also become an international leader in the design and production of manure tanks and other manure-management equipment like pumps and lagoon agitators.

“All of our products are designed to make the world cleaner,” Nuhn said. “We did a lot of work with (Agriculture and Agri-Food) Canada in doing manure research a while back, and that was what helped us get an understanding of what needed to happen. Basically, all of our products make it easier and faster and more viable for a cleaner environment. Our pumps take a lot less energy than anything else on the road and pumps a lot more. We have really big customers like custom haulers in the US who are all switching to our equipment because they save so much in fuel and energy, and they do a much better job.”

Nuhn said part of the company’s success in growing its customer base both domestically and around the world is its commitment to selling the right equipment to solve a particular problem a farmer might have.

Another key to the company’s success is keeping it family owned and operated. Nuhn said he can address issues and take advantage of opportunities much faster than if he had to report to a board of directors.

The company also benefits from the knowledge and skills of each successive generation, like his son, Ian Nuhn, who grew up working alongside his dad. The younger Nuhn found his passion for designing innovative and efficient equipment and, at age 19, designed and patented the Triple Port Header Series pump – a much faster and more efficient pump than anything on the market. In 2013, Ian Nuhn and the team also designed and built the first lagoon crawler prototype – a one-of-a-kind amphibious manure agitator boat – and the Electra-Steer tank line, which has one of the most advanced electronic-steering systems available.

“My son worked with me since he was 12 and the he went to university and took business management. … He brought the computer age to the company and he’s very good at it. … It’s like a sport. We’re trying to constantly improve our game (with) new ideas and natural talent. … We have a really good workforce, probably the best we’ve ever had. We need a working team, and I’ve been told by a lot of people who worked there, it’s more of a big family attitude rather than work. We may have our little disagreements, but overall everybody is playing on the same team,” Dennis Nuhn said.

Dennis Nuhn, as well as the 2020 and 2022 Agriculture Wall of Fame honorees, Bert Vorstenbosch and Antony John and Tina Vanden Heuvel, will be honored with a short presentation during the Rotary Club of Stratford’s Rural-Urban Dinner at the Stratford Rotary Complex April 13.

The Stratford Perth Museum Agriculture Wall of Fame was started in 2013 by seven Perth County residents who were named to the Ontario Agriculture Hall of Fame. The wall of fame is open to current and former residents of Perth County who have made outstanding contributions to agriculture in Perth County as nominated by members of the public.

“We have nominations from throughout the county. We’re looking for people who have gone the extra mile beyond what they do in their profession,” said museum board member and chair of the Agriculture Wall of Fame committee John McIntosh. “Dennis is one that has certainly accomplished a lot beyond his business at home in that he’s known now basically throughout the world. Nuhn tanks, because of their quality, have found there way to many parts of the US and further abroad.”

Dennis Nuhn is the 16th Perth County resident to be honored on the wall of fame, which is available for viewing virtually on the Stratford Perth Museum’s website at www.stratfordperthmuseum.ca/stratford-perth-museum-agricultural-wall-of-fame.

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