BUILDING COMPOSTING SUCCESS ON QUALITY ORGANICS

Green trimmings and woody materials are combined with food residuals at the A1 Organics Nevada site – bringing compost to the market for buyers who now understand

its value.



Molly Farrell Tucker





AFTER 33 years in Colorado, A1 Organics is gambling on duplicating its composting success in the largely untapped market of Las Vegas, Nevada. A1 Organics, based in Eaton, Colorado, operates seven organics collection and composting facilities and/or recycling centers along Colorado‘‘s Front Range.

A1 grew out of Lambland, Inc., a commercial lamb feeding operation on Duane Wilson‘‘s 160-acre farm in Eaton in the late 1960s. Lambland began composting sheep manure to manage its feedlot waste. A1 Organics was founded in 1974. In 1987, the family began phasing out the feedlot operation to focus on composting manure and other materials. (See “Maximizing Revenue Streams At Composting Facilities,” April 2003 for a company history and profile.)

Today, A1 Organics is the largest manufacturer of compost and related products in the Rocky Mountain region, producing and marketing more than 350,000 cubic yards of compost and soil amendments annually. According to its website, the company has diverted more than 8 million cubic yards of waste from Colorado landfills in its first 30 years and is currently diverting nearly 500,000 cubic yards/year. The company processes biosolids, animal manures, brewery wastes, green waste, wood waste (including clean nonpainted or treated construction debris and limbs), food waste and other organic materials.

Chuck Wilson, the company‘‘s President, started looking for new sites outside of Colorado in 2003 because markets there were tightening. “We were seeing increased competition in Colorado,” he says. “We receive tip fees to offset our processing costs and the tip fees were eroding because of the high demand for green waste and wood waste. Other facilities were taking the materials for free or offering to pick them up.”

A1 Colorado‘‘s sales were beginning to plateau for the first time in years. “We had always promoted quality products and inferior products were now going into the marketplace based on price alone,” explains Wilson. “There was frustration because A1 had sold all of its finished products since its inception, but that changed with the drop in Colorado‘‘s retail housing market and the increased pressure from low quality, noncompost products being dumped on the market.”



PROSPECTING IN LAS VEGAS

The search outside of Colorado quickly focused on Las Vegas. Wilson had visited there a few times for conferences and pleasure trips. “The market in Las Vegas seemed very underdeveloped, much like Colorado was 20 years ago,” he says. Wilson and Bob Yost, A1‘‘s Vice-President of New Business Development, spent the next two years exploring the Vegas market. “We had to do our market research and due diligence,” explains Wilson.

They found little competition there in terms of composting operations. “One other company has a type of compost operation in Las Vegas, but it is more of a wood processor and wood recycler instead of a full-scale composting facility,” says Yost, who is responsible for permitting, contracts, new business development and marketing. Prices for finished compost appeared higher because most of what was being marketed as compost was being imported from other states including California, Utah and Arizona.

Construction was booming in Las Vegas, with golf courses and schools that would require landscaping. Las Vegas is located in Clark County, the most populated of Nevada‘‘s 17 counties with two million residents and 70 percent of the state‘‘s population. Clark County is one of the fastest growing school districts in the country. In 2006, it was building new schools at the rate of one per month.

Wilson predicted that Las Vegas would be an<