ADEL — Cook County welcomed Custom Ag Formulators with a groundbreaking Tuesday morning.

The company got its start in Fresno, Calif., 19 years ago.

“We actually started as just a liquid fertilizer manufacturer in Fresno,” said Jerry Steward, president of Custom Ag Formulators. “We continued to grow, growing into the dry fertilizer industry in our third year.”

The company also looked for other ways to diversify.

“Ag is only about nine months out of the year,” said Steward. “You go strong for nine months and then ag dies off. So we went into toll-blending, which is basically blending for other chemical companies and other industries. We blend a little bit of everything: drinking water additives, drip irrigation, hydroponics.”

Since then, the company has continued to diversify, getting into the fracking and wastewater treatment business, as well as opening the Fresno-based Sandals at the Beach Grill.

In the mid-2000s, Custom Ag Formulators expanded to Australia, opening a manufacturing facility in Goondiwindi, Australia.

“Australia’s the other side of the planet,” said Steward. “We thought that’d add more work with the difference in seasons.”

Custom Ag Formulator also wanted to take advantage of Australia’s location to aid the company’s growing international business.

“We were having a hard time with export shipments,” said Steward. “We’d have shipments go into Singapore and get held up, we’d have port strikes slow us down.”

A couple of years ago, Steward and the company wanted to expand again, this time onto the East Coast of the United States.

In making the decision to locate to Cook County, Steward cites several reasons: the proximity to Interstate 75, access to rail to bring in raw ingredients and ship out product, and the ease of getting the project off the ground.

Lisa Collins, director of eco-development for Cook County Economic Development Commission, credits that ease to the community working together.

“Our community works very well together,” said Collins. “The community creates the product, everything that companies look for when coming to a new community: low crime, healthcare, quality of life. What we do as economic developers is sell the product.”

With Custom Ag Formulators located at the other side of the country, Collins, along with other Cook County businesses and leaders, worked to introduce the area and familiarize the company with what they could offer, bringing in representatives from the Georgia Department of Economic Development to explain Georgia’s incentive programs and talking with Norfolk Southern about installing a railroad spur for Custom Ag Formulators facility.

“It wasn’t a few people doing something,” said Collins. “To me, it was a win for the entire community and because of the entire community.”

Local manufacturer Elite Structures said it could build the facility.

Today, the facility is ready to go and waiting in storage.

“It’s just pouring the concrete and getting the electrical and plumbing down,” said Patrick Murray, sales manager for Custom Ag Formulators. “We already have everything ready to go.”

The first phase of Custom Ag Formulators’ project will be the construction and installation of a 20,000-square-foot facility that will employ 16 people and represents more than $800,000 in capital investment. The facility will be used to produce liquid fertilizer.

Work on the project site is scheduled to start in the next couple of weeks, with Jan. 1 planned as the first day of business.

Phase two will add a facility for dry fertilizer and toll blending, creating a comparable number of jobs and representing a similar investment.

“I don’t know if we’ll see that in 2016, but in 2017, we should be fully rolled out here,” said Steward.

At the groundbreaking Tuesday, Steward contrasted the ease of doing business in Georgia versus California several times.

“It’s been amazing, what you’ve done for us,” said Steward. “Over our 19 years of business, we’ve built three facilities in Fresno, one in Goondiwindi, Australia. This has gone so smooth. We’ve had nothing but nightmares in California. I don’t know why we stay in California. There may come a day when we move our corporate offices here.

“Everybody we’ve dealt with here, we’ve been working on a handshake to get this facility going.”

Custom Ag Formulators is the first company to locate at Cook County’s South Georgia Megasite, a 3,000-acre area a few miles south of Adel on U.S. 41.

With its new location, Custom Ag can reach customers in one day compared to what used to take four days, with a one-day radius that extends down to Miami, north to Virginia and west to Mississippi.

“Thirty-four percent of our current business in California comes out of the East Coast,” said Steward. “So we’re opening the doors running. We’ve got plenty of product we’re going to be moving.”

Stuart Taylor is a reporter for the Valdosta Daily Times.