About Smude's Brand

Smude's Brand began out of adversity - Jenni and Tom Smude started out as crop farmers, with much of the crops dedicated to feed and bedding for their herd of beef cattle. But two straight years of crop devastation tested their finances and their faith. After extensive research into drought-tolerant crops, they took a gamble and planted 60 acres of sunflowers. The original goal was to sell sunflower meal as animal feed and sell the "byproduct" sunflower oil in bulk. But three months in, they faced another hard choice when the price for bulk oil fell sharply. Although there wasn't much sunflower oil on the retail market, they took another leap of faith by starting Smude's Sunflower Oil, hoping their big idea would take off. All their hard work started to pay off when word spread about their delicious sunflower oil, and soon retailers were calling! Never strangers to hard work, Jenni and Tom continue to crop farm, planting 150 acres of sunflowers, corn, soybeans, and hay each year, and Tom raises a herd of Black Angus beef cattle. Committed supporters of the local economy, Jenni and Tom are proud to own four other businesses in the Pierz community. When not working, Tom and Jenni are active in the Pierz Commercial Club and proud supporters of the Pierz Pioneers. Tom and Jenni's children are following in their footsteps - Katelyn is the Marketing Manager for the family businesses, and when not in school or helping on the farm, Mitchell is hard at work on the grain bin crew.Read their story