Of all the planning seasons (30 of them, time flies when you’re having fun) this one may go down in history as one of the most difficult… fingers crossed we don’t say that again this spring!

Our raw materials are tariffed and/or more expensive to get, the cost to move those materials has doubled, production is booked out, retaliatory tariffs have affected growers and hurricane Michael and Florence that have left millions of people and a power grid to re-build as well as many of our own customers.

The rumblings of possible tariffs and greater demand on domestic production led us to the decision to hedge metals (a lot of metal) and plan production out much earlier this year. Hindsight being 20/20, I am grateful we did. Many factors in the market are impossible to plan for (hurricanes) but thankfully, our inventory began arriving months ago and will continue to do so through the end of the year. While not all cost increases are in our control, we have successfully managed the ones that are.

Our first priority is and always will be Agriculture, so I do urge orders to be placed as soon as you can, even if it is to hold material, as demand has been increasing across market sectors for aluminum products.