Stahlbush builds bio-gas plant to generate power

By Alex Paul

Gazette-Times reporter

Stahlbush Island Farms will soon close the sustainable agriculture loop on its 5,000-acre farming and ag processing operations east of Corvallis.

In June, owners Bill and Karla Chambers plan to fire up a $10 million bio-gas plant that will generate methane and electricity from residue such as corn cobs and husks, material left over after crops are canned or frozen. The plant will generate enough electricity to power 1,100 homes.

Karla Chambers, who is the company vice president and holds undergraduate and graduate degrees from OSU, spoke Thursday as part of the Austin Entrepreneurship Program's Entrepreneur in Residence Series. Her talk was titled, "What Entrepreneurs Can Learn from Agriculture."

Chambers said when it is fully operational, the plant will produce twice the amount of electricity currently needed to power the company's entire agricultural processing and packaging operations. Any remaining organic byproducts will be used to fertilize crop ground, she said.

Although we are living in challenging economic times, Chambers said, "I've never been so glad to be in the food business or to own agricultural real estate."

Stahlbush Island Farms grows and processes 130 types of organic vegetables and berries that are sold nationwide and into 20 foreign countries. The company's No. 1 import market is Japan, followed by China, Chambers said.

China is dealing with many environmental and agricultural issues including air and water quality and chemical residue in soils. As the country's middle class grows, so will its demand for higher-quality food, Chambers said. That will open the door even wider for U.S. ag products, she said.

Chambers said Stahlbush Island Farms has been committed to sustainability since the 1990s, long before it became trendy.

Company entrepreneurship has come in many forms over the last 25 years, Chambers said.

When the family learned that dog owners fed pumpkin pie to their pets, the family relabeled its pumpkin pie filling under the brand name Nummy Tum-Tum for pets. That line alone generates nearly as much annual income as the Chamberses made in their first years of farming, she said.

Her husband has been extremely creative in terms of developing and fabricating equipment for the company's processing plants, Chambers said.

The use of high-tech Geographic Position System technology greatly reduces fuel consumption and over-planting of seed, Chambers said.

Chambers, whose expertise is in sales and marketing, spends months researching what customers are going to want for the coming growing season, and then determines how much of each product will be planted.

"We don't grow it if we don't have a market for it," Chambers said. "First we get the contracts, and then we plant."

Company values flow from the top, Chambers said. Stahlbush Island Farms greatly values cleanliness and high-quality food.

"Our food safety audits have ranked 98 percent and 97.73 percent out of 100 the last two years," Chambers said. "The auditor said he has done about 3,000 audits and ours are the highest of all."

There is no room for error, Chambers said, in the wake of numerous food recalls, especially of foreign-raised products.

Chambers has long endorsed country of origin labeling with the belief that consumers want to know where their food is coming from and will make purchases accordingly.

"A recent survey showed that 28 percent more people are buying products made in the USA and 25 percent more are trying to buy locally made things," Chambers said.

Alex Paul can be contacted at alex.paul@lee.net or by calling 758-9526.