In Tennessee, Tony Emmanuel has gone from never having heard of mulch to heading up a major producer of mulch products.

At first glance, in the world of wood waste processors, there could hardly be a less likely candidate to make a contribution to the industry than Tony Emmanuel. Prior to his coming to the United States some 20 years ago, the South Africa native had neither seen nor heard of mulch.

A fortunate turn of events, however, steered him toward co-ownership of what was, at the time, the by-products division of one of Tennessee's largest lumber companies. Today his firm, aptly named The Mulch Company, has used a combination of good business practices, solid technology and a broad product offering to rise to the forefront of Nashville-area mulch processors.

The irony of Emmanuel becoming something of a "mulch mogul" lies in the fact that in his native South Africa, mulch is not just a rarity. It is literally unheard of.

"When I bought my first house shortly after arriving in this country," he says, "I saw a neighbor's garden and mentioned to him that it had the best soil I had ever seen. He knew immediately that I wasn't from the area and filled me in that the soil was, in fact, mulch. Because we don't have a forest industry in South Africa and, as a result, have no wood by-products, I was intrigued by what I saw."

That neighbor took Emmanuel to the primary mulch dealer in the area, the Woodson Lumber-owned Mulch Company, where he met general manager Ernie Hansel. In a strange twist of fate, the two met again several years later when each was coaching his son's soccer team.

"Ernie remembered me and mentioned that Woodson was looking to sell the business," Emmanuel recalls. "He thought that the two of us might make good partners in such a venture, given his experience and my combination of accounting skills and obvious enthusiasm for the product. Ernie's feelings were apparently on the mark; we've really enjoyed growing the business and have done quite well for ourselves in that regard."

According to Emmanuel, the company has changed dramatically since their early days.

"We started in 1985 when my partner and I purchased the company from Woodson Lumber," he says. "At that time — and for about the next five years — we focused our efforts on the bagging facet of the business. However, in about 1990, we sold that part of the business, choosing instead to concentrate on creating and selling new mulch products. We've grown steadily to where we are today, with sales roughly six times what they were at the outset, a steady clientele of mostly landscape professionals, and a product offering that includes five different grinds of mulch as well as soils and compost products."

These days, operating on five separate sites in Tennessee, The Mulch Company takes in material from customers throughout that state as well as from Kentucky and Alabama. The company runs five tractor trailers picking up material from customers throughout the three-state geographic area they serve.

To handle that material, The Mulch Company currently operates two processing sites. One is an 11-acre location in Nashville; the other is a 15-acre site in Knoxville. Additionally, the company operates three yards which serve the retail side of the business.

While many of Emmanuel's counterparts in the mulch industry rely heavily upon some of the largest grinding equipment for downsizing material and creating product, The Mulch Company instead utilizes a pair of comparatively mid-sized grinders — a Morbark Model 1000 tub and a Model 3600 horizontal grinder.

"Before we purchased our first Morbark, we relied upon fixed grinders to which we would bring our material," he says. "In addition to just being completely dissatisfied with the performance of those units, we also felt that we could dramatically shorten our production cycle times if we took the grinder to different areas of the sites."

The Morbark 1000 tub grinder proved to be a good fit, with its 10-foot-6-inch tub and a weight of 25,500 pounds, and its mobility was a definite plus for the type of operation that Emmanual had in mind.

"We are able to move it about the yard fairly easily," he says. "In fact, it has really been the backbone of our grinding operation."

To grind bark for mulch production, Emmanuel says, they use the Model 3600 horizontal grinder with a chain-fed 11-foot by 63-inch live floor feeding a 25-1/4-inch-diameter rotor.

"The 3600 is also the unit we have configured to handle the colorization of the product," he says. "We currently offer red and black as color choices, but we're very close to adding a chocolate brown to use in the event we run out of hardwood mulch."

The demand for mulch products appears to be strong and steady.

"We've upped our volumes every year, and this year expect to easily top 300,000 yards of product from about 400,000 yards taken in," says Emmanuel. "We've been able to achieve that impressive growth curve through a combination of good business practices; excellent, committed employees; and equipment that can be relied upon."

Staff
September 18, 2006
Dixie Contractor