Dick Bryant, owner of a local landmark, announces the sale of the Branford Feed Mill. The sale between Bob Burt, owner of Branford Mini Storage and Nessa Chemical Company was final on Friday, September 12.



Saturday, September 13, was the last day that customers were able to purchase feed from the Branford Feed Mill.



They will be closed for one week beginning September 14, and will re-open September 20 for a morning clearance sale.



Bryant bought the feed mill from his father, the late Mabry Bryant, in the early 1990s. His father came to Branford in 1959 with Carl Zellman, and they bought the feed mill from Lloyd Cribbs. The buy out was arranged by McElvoy-Futch out of Valdosta.

The elder Bryant operated the feed mill for 33 to 34 years before selling to his son Dick and retiring.



Bryant said, “We believe this to be the oldest continuous family owned Purina Feed dealership in Florida.”



“Daddy was one of the original Swift and Company Feed representatives in 1949. He went on in 1955 to work with West-End Milling Company. This is how he found out about Branford Feed Mill. He sold feed to the mill he later bought. Dad was one of the original Swift and Company feed reps in the United States. He started out working for Swift and Company with by products for a long time, then he helped open the feed division with Swift and Company,” said Bryant.



He was involved with some of the early experimental feeding supplements with Coastal Plaines Experimental Station, in Tifton, Georgia.



Bryant joined his father in the business in 1972, and became a certified Purina Feeding advisor.

Mabry began with a hog feeding program of his own. Mabry and his son were the only two persons who were arrested for keeping hogs in the Town of Branford, Dick related with a smile.

He said, “Store keepers in the 1940s couldn’t keep sweet potatoes outside, as the local hogs would eat them, not ours, because we weren’t here yet.”



The feed mill sold poultry of all kinds during the years they were in business. They also sold rabbits on occasion.



Not long ago, Karl Mincks caught a raccoon in a live trap inside the building. “We had one tear up a couple of bags of feed, and we caught this one,” Mincks said.



Mincks will be unemployed with the sale of the feed mill. “I will probably go to Badcock in Lake Butler, where I live.” he said.



“Mincks has managed the feed mill for the last several years, and has done an outstanding job,” said Bryant. He has worked at the feed mill for 23 years. “We both appreciate being a part of this community for over 30 years,” Bryant said.



Bryant will be doing some photography and plans to go back to school and do some waterfall photography in Georgia on a four day expedition.



Bryant’s son Bryant Maddox is in college now and will be back in the winter session. He’s a student at Lake City Community College.



Bob Burt reached by phone had this to say. “We’re not totally committed to any one particular direction, we have a lot of fixing and improvements to make before it will be usable for what we are doing. Some of it will be warehousing. But the time frame on stuff like this, is totally dependent upon the amount of time we have to do it. We don’t have to really get into it right away. We don’t plan on selling feed,” said Burt.



“The corporation that we formed to take over is formed by myself, my wife, and daughter Vicki White. Vicki is an accountant and she’s going to be the secretary/treasurer and my wife is president. My son in law, Ed and I are tag alongs. I don’t have any official office other than registered agent for the corporation we are forming to take on the feed mill. We are calling it the Old Mill Corporation.



We are going to try to preserve the feed mill, in it’s present state, and let people remember what used to be in Branford. At this point we have no specific plans, but just entered into this for our family to do. And it’s a whole lot better than the stock market, and something our family can do.

Making money is a priority, but we’re anxious to fix it up. The property is commercial, industrial zoning. We have a copy of the zoning we got from the town hall. It certainly will lend itself to anything we would want to do and a lot more.



Nessa will probably rent space. I have never had a display place for pressure washing equipment, accessories, reels, tanks, trailer mounted tanks, and things that agricultural people use.

Our son in law needed a place. He owns Southern Helicopters. Ed is a helicopter pilot, who does spraying for agricultural interests all over the south east. He really needs a place where he can store his helicopter under cover and his trucks, too.



This will be a nice place for this use.



I am too old to make too many long range plans. What we would like to do is to help our children. We’d like to help them get to what they would want to do. In another 10 years I will want to retire.



We plan on taking over the property on Friday, September 12.” Burt said.