Location and market diversity- the secret to JCC’s success
Johnson City Chemical (JCC) is a thriving business today, because it began to diversify it’s market a decade ago. “I began this business 35 years ago to mix and distribute chemicals for agriculture. As a farm supplier you can do everything perfect to serve the needs of farmers and still flop, because we are all so dependant on the weather,” said Bennet Spratlin, founder and president of JCC. So JCC began to search in earnest for new markets and they looked at their assets.
Location, location, location turned out to be the prime asset. JCC sits a few feet from Norfolk Southern’s main line and two miles from a switching yard connecting to the CSX main line. The location in Johnson City is centrally located within 75% of the United States population and within one-day’s drive of that population due to an excellent interstate system in the region.
“There is not another offload business like JCC with access to two major rail lines for 400 miles,” said JCC vice president Mark Williams. “Superior Industries was a first customer and they approached us to handle rail shipping of huge amounts of aluminum T bars for their production. Their product was coming out of Canada and truck freight was very costly. Sometimes transportation costs are as high as production costs for an industry and that is where we offer solutions.”
“What helped us to succeed is non-rail served industries that benefit from having rail shipments through a third party. We just do materials handling. The customer gets the product to us by rail, we unload it, and then we either deliver it to their customers (a division of JCC has 10 trucks) or their customers pick it up. We provide warehousing on site, car handling and whatever is necessary.”
In the last decade JCC has shipped everything from coiled steel to sawdust. The steel comes from Mexico to JCC to be trucked to a customer in North Carolina. The sawdust is from a furniture manufacturer in North Carolina whose customer turns sawdust into wood pellets used in wood stoves in Rhode Island. JCC receives shipments of a liquid product that is used in water treatment plants, battery manufacturing and food manufacturing throughout the region. Other customers include flooring manufacturers, shelving for retailers, lumber, steel, aluminum and many others.
“Our presence as a third party rail shipment handler is a benefit to the whole area for economic development. For example, a company that mines salt in Saltville, VA at a site that had a Norfolk Southern siding, needed a CSX siding to enable United Salt to serve a customer with CSX access. United Salt came to Saltville, because of our presence in the region with both CSX and Norfolk nearby.”
Agricultural Chemicals- JCC moved it’s agricultural chemicals operation to other sites it has in Chilhowie, VA Greeneville, TN and Morristown, TN. At one time JCC had 17 agricultural chemicals distribution sites throughout the region. But this was at a time when the region was predominately agricultural. The decline of small farming operations and growth of urban development in the region has changed the business, but Spratlin still considers the fertilzer and farm chemical business to be its “core business”.
“In the last decade our workforce has doubled and our business in Johnson City is doing well. This is a low-margin, high volume business so we have to constantly innovate. You can’t be reactive you must be proactive…always seeking new business.” said Williams. “We receive a ‘premier provider’ rating from CSX and the railroads themselves bring us a lot of business. But if you think we can cut costs for your manufacturing operation, give us a call. We like a challenge and problem-solving is something we do very well.” said Williams.