'We feed the world': Screw Conveyor Corp. marks 90 years in Hammond

Garry Abraham is the general manager and CEO of Screw Conveyor Corp. in Hammond.

Helicoid flighting waits to be transformed into augers or screw conveyors.

Garry Abraham, center, is the general manager and CEO of Screw Conveyor Corporation in Hammond. He is joined by Business Administrative Director Craig Abraham, left, and Engineering and Manufacturing Technology Director Steve Boudreau.

A completed auger or screw is pictured at Screw Conveyor in Hammond.

Engineering and Manufacturing Technology Director Steve Boudreau checks on the Super-Flo conveyor used for demonstrations.

This Super-Flo conveyor is used for demonstration purposes for prospective clients.

A completed screw conveyor is pictured.

HAMMOND — If you’ve had a bowl of breakfast cereal, snacked on some almonds or sipped a cup of America's top-selling coffee, a long-running Hammond company probably helped it happen.

Screw Conveyor Corporation makes screw conveyors and other products used in food processing, serving clients that include many recognizable household brands like Kellogg's, General Mills and Folgers.

The family-owned manufacturing company at 700 Hoffman St. in Hammond recently celebrated its 90th business anniversary.

Headquartered in Hammond, Screw Conveyor Corporation manufactures bulk materials handling equipment like screw conveyors, bucket elevators and drag conveyors. It has manufacturing plants in Hammond; Winona, Mississippi; Visalia, California; and Guadalajara, Mexico, that supply customers all over the world.

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"Our products are used throughout much of industry," General Manager, CEO and third-generation owner Garry Abraham said. "They’re used in processing industries like food processing, chemical processing. ... They’re used to make food, animal feed and Kellogg's cereal. Our customer base is worldwide."

The company's largest plant is in Mississippi, south of Memphis. It operates in corporate headquarters in Hammond where it still does manufacturing, making bucket elevators. Factories use series of the company's buckets on belts or chains to lift products vertically while they’re being processed on an assembly line.

Screw Conveyor Corporation has long done business with local companies, serving Cargill's Hammond plant since it was American Maize and Hammond's Unilever plant since it was Lever Brothers. It serves Harris Ranch Beef Company, the largest supplier of steak on the West Coast with more than $600 million a year in sales.

The company even fills orders internationally, including from Japan and Australia.

It sells processing equipment and replacement parts, connecting customers with installers who can get them up in running. It can also adapt to customers’ specific needs.

"We have six engineers that can basically design something from scratch," Abraham said. "Most customers buy the standard products. The food processors use our products to make almonds and pistachios. The grain processors use them. We’ve sold significantly to General Mills and Kellogg's. We’ve sold to wood processors like Georgia Pacific. We’ve sold to chemicals processing and waste management for all the goo and stuff that comes out of the waste chain. It's not necessarily a glamor product, but it's been around since the time of Archimedes."

The company was founded during the depths of the Great Depression in October 1932. It started as an offshoot of the George W. Moore Company on 42nd Street in Chicago. Chief Engineer Clarence F. Abraham and four others who worked for that company struck out on their own and started making screw conveyors in Hammond, using the expertise they gained at the other plant before they were let go during tough economic times.

"They all lived in Illinois and came over to Hammond for a lot of the same reasons that companies come over to Hammond and Northwest Indiana to do business today," Abraham said.

The banks wouldn't loan them any money. They had to sell their scrap metal to buy primary metals to turn it into a product.

"It was trying as it was the heart of the depression," he said. "Years ago, when we celebrated our 60th anniversary, my father checked with Dunn and Bradstreet and asked the historian how many businesses started in the heart of the depression survived. They didn't have specific records, but he said damn few."

But Screw Conveyor Corporation got established and built up a loyal customer base.

"It had its ups and downs, but we started with maybe 10 employees," he said. "But now we’re much larger with around 180 employees, including Mexico."

The company expanded to Mississippi in 1952, Santa Clara, south of San Francisco, in 1955 and Mexico in 1994.

"We have locations in the Upper Midwest, the Southeast and the West Coast. We pretty much cover a whole lot of the United States," he said. "The Mexico location covers Central American and South America. We have a lot of customers in Columbia, the hub of animal feed."

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Screw Conveyor Corporation products are often used to feed livestock that end up on plates and are also used in rice and sugar processing.

"I would say about 65% to 70% of the products we sell are used for some type of food consumption, whether human consumption or food animal feed that will eventually result in food for human consumption," he said. "We make key pieces. We’re integral to the process. I like to think we feed the world."

The company also made augers for John Deere tractors during the 1950s, 60s and 70s, but that business line dried up when John Deere decided to start making augers in-house.

The business was cyclical in the past but has gotten steadier as it diversified its products.

"Our customer based is much more stable and consistent," he said. "At one time we were more connected to grain and what was happening in the fields."

Many of its customers have been with the company for decades. While a lot of its sales are to mass distributors, it deals directly with major customers like cereal makers, Folgers and nut producers on the West Coast.

"A lot of the cereal processors have been with us more than 50 years," he said. "I’ve made more than one trip to Battle Creek, Michigan, to work with Kellogg's. It's fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me. If you meet their needs, they tend to buy from the same company year in and year out. We’ve been able to meet companies’ needs for 90 years and hopefully another 90 years."

He and his brother Curtis F. Abraham are third-generation owners, though Curtis doesn't work full-time because of health issues. Nephew Craig C. Abraham is being ushered in as the fourth generation of family leadership.

"The family has been very successful in running the company," he said. "We look forward to many more successful years in Hammond."

The company marked its anniversary with a party in Wicker Park that drew current and former employees. Many of its workers stay there for years.

"We have a really good group of people and try to find good people to replace them when they leave or retire," he said. "We really do carry about our people. We provide them with the best work environment we can, and they tend to stick with us."

Already enduring for the better part of the century, the company plans to stick around.

"Our motto is that we have the experience to do it right," he said. "It's a significant milestone to continue to make the products we have for the last 90 years. We want to continue to grow our customer base as much as we can. We help process food to help feed the world."

Garry Abraham is the General Manager and CEO of Screw Conveyor Corporation in Hammond.

Garry Abraham, center, is the general manager and CEO of Screw Conveyor Corporation in Hammond. He is joined by Business Administrative Director Craig Abraham, left, and Engineering and Manufacturing Technology Director Steve Boudreau.

Engineering and Manufacturing Technology Director Steve Boudreau checks on the Super-Flo conveyor used for demonstrations.

A completed auger or screw is pictured at Screw Conveyor in Hammond.

Helicoid flighting waits to be transformed into augers or screw conveyors.

This Super-Flo conveyor is used for demonstration purposes for prospective clients.

Garry Abraham is the general manager and CEO of Screw Conveyor Corp. in Hammond.

This Super-Flo conveyor is used for demonstration purposes for prospective clients.

A completed screw conveyor is pictured.

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Region native Joseph S. Pete is a Lisagor Award-winning business reporter who covers steel, industry, unions, the ports, retail, banking and more. The Indiana University grad has been with The Times of Northwest Indiana since 2013.

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