Irlmeier Ostrich Farm

Audubon, IA
There is a unique farming operation located in Audubon County, Iowa, where Heath Irlmeier raises the largest birds in the world. That’s right, Ostriches! Valued for their lean, heart healthy meat, delicious eggs, and relatively small space requirements, these birds offer a unique farming opportunity in a low supply, high demand environment. One ostrich egg is the equivalent of 24 chicken eggs! That’s one big omelet!

Lonely Oak Distillery

Earling, IA
lonelyoakdistillery.com
Located in the heart of Shelby County, Iowa, you’ll find an oasis amidst the cornfields. Lonely Oak Distillery is a micro-distillery, owned and operated by local producers Pat & Amy Hoffmann. As farmers, they had a vision about their crop. Not only did they want to harvest the grain, but they wanted to make something out of it - something universal. Something unique. Something to celebrate. Something that would bring people together. What brings people together better than spirits? Their dedication to producing premium spirits is represented in each batch; from tilling the soil, planting the seed, grain selection, distillation, maturation, and finally, bottling. Craft is everything, and it shows. Lonely Oak is a true seed-to-spirit craft distillery, and one of only a handful across the nation.

Elite Octane

Atlantic, IA
eliteoctane.com
Elite Octane, LLC is a privately held company that owns a dry mill ethanol plant near Atlantic, Iowa. They commenced operations in July 2018. The plant produces more than 150,000,000 gallons of ethanol per year. Some of its features include: two truck probes with three inbound lanes and two inbound scales. Three corn-receiving grain legs that are each rated for 30,000 bushels per hour, which will dump a semi-truck in approximately 2 minutes. Four Sukup corn storage bins that are each 156 feet in diameter and hold 2,000,000 bushels for a total corn storage capacity of 8,000,000 bushels. Nine fermentation tanks that are each rated for 807,000 gallons of capacity. Three finished ethanol storage tanks that are each rated to hold 2,000,000 gallons. Flat storage dry distillers building that will hold 8,000 tons. Dry distillers grain bulk-weigher and loadout system rated for 350 tons per hour, which will load a semi-truck in less than 5 minutes.

Overnight Accomodations - Old Market District

Omaha, NE
Old Market District
At the end of the 19th century, Omaha was in its prime as a great railroad center, connecting the settled East with the wide-open West. The Old Market area was the epicenter of the activity, bustling with produce dealers, buyers, and transporters. The area’s heyday continued until the 1950s, when Omaha’s westward expansion and radical changes in grocery marketing abruptly brought the activity to a halt. That’s when Sam Mercer, threatened with building condemnation notices, proposed to rescue his family’s red-brick warehouses by renovating them for new uses. Most people thought him imprudent. Today, they call him a visionary. By 1968, Mercer began to strategically gain control of a collection of buildings in what is now the Old Market. It was Mercer’s idea to make the ground-floor space of the former Gilinsky Fruit Company into a French restaurant. It became the Old Market’s signature spot, the French Café (Now Le Bouillon), with apartments above it opened in 1970. More anchored attractions followed—Homer’s, M’s Pub, Mr. Toad's, the Spaghetti Works, Nouvelle Eve, the Firehouse Dinner Theater, the Bemis. Distinct features to this day include The Passageway, V Mertz, La Buvette, and The Boiler Room.

Lincoln Premium Poultry

Fremont, NE
LincolnPremiumPoultry.com
Lincoln Premium Poultry is a Nebraska company established in 2016 for Costco - in collaboration with Costco - to serve as the poultry management company for their new poultry complex in Fremont, NE. The poultry complex, which includes a new state-of-the-art processing facility, hatchery, and feed mill is owned by Costco. Early studies estimated the economic impact of approximately $1.2 billion annually, which is approximately 1 percent of Nebraska’s GDP. Additionally, the complex and associated growers utilize local corn and soybeans to feed the chickens, and with no rail on site, all corn comes from local farmers and partners.

CLAAS North America

Omaha, NE
ClaasOfAmerica.com
CLAAS of America, Inc. is located within the “heart” of the corn and wheat belts of the Midwest. Home of the award winning LEXION combine, the facility in Omaha, NE is one of the most modern in the marketplace. Omaha is the assembly site for North America’s LEXION combines and home to a team of engineers and CLAAS personnel spearheading header and machine development. Get a behind-the-scenes look at the CLAAS North American headquarters, where hundreds of LEXION combines are assembled each year!