Alliance acquires Herscher Grain

GIBSON CITY – Gibson City based Alliance Grain Company has acquired Herscher Grain Company.
“We were approached by the owners about a year ago at this time,” explained Alliance general manager Joe Thompson late last week. “We looked into it and obviously decided that it was a beneficial addition to Alliance Grain.”
The Herscher facility has around 1.7 million bushels of grain capacity with access to the CN rail market. Thompson says this factor was very attractive to Alliance. The employee group at Herscher is similar to Alliance’s existing employees with many years of experience serving customers.
“It really fed in well with Alliance Grain’s current package,” Thompson said.
Alliance has northern locations not far from Herscher at Charlotte, Cullom, Campus and Cabery. They will now be able to move bushels to Herscher as another grain outlet. This will be the 15th Alliance location. The company also has a majority interest in a short-line railroad known as the Bloomer Line which serves eight of the company elevators.
The Herscher location has five full-time employees including northern territory area manager Andy Cotter, office manager Sheila Kohl, operations manager Gary Kohl, and operations support members James Cox and Cameron Schwark. The office can be reached at 815-426-2231.