Topeka's Orscheln Farm store now a Bomgaars location

Topeka’s Orscheln Farm and Home Store is now a Bomgaars location.

But store visitors won’t immediately notice any significant difference.

The family-owned retail farm and ranch supply chain headquartered in Sioux City, Iowa, acquired the location at 1133 S.W. Wanamaker Road as part of a divestiture agreement approved by the Federal Trade Commission last week related to the sale of the Orscheln company to Tractor Supply.

It is one of 73 stores Bomgaars has acquired, including 21 in Kansas. Other area locations include Hutchinson, Newton, Salina, McPherson, Pratt, Great Bend, Garden City, Dodge City and Hays.

Another 16 Orscheln stores in Kansas will convert to Tractor Supply locations.

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All of the former Orscheln employees here have been retained, said Heather Korbe, marketing director with Bomgaars, with no immediate plans for change.

With the sale just occurring, the company is still figuring out how things will work, Korbe said, including when and how to change signs on the building.

“The plan is to transition the stores over the next 12 to 15 months,” Korbe said. “But it is a Bomgaars store now.”

That includes rebranding the store and changing its layout to reflect how Bomgaars operates. Internal changes likely won’t start until early spring, she said.

Bomgaars operates on four merchandise pillars

The company has four merchandise “pillars” it focuses on, Korbe said, including Dewalt tools, lawn and garden and other seasonal outdoor products, animal food for pets and livestock, and footwear.

“We have more than those four, but those four we really strive to have a good assortment and equipment,” she said.During its transition over the next year, as Orscheln stocks need replenishing, Bomgaars will bring in its products to replace them.

Bomgaars, operated by the Bomgaars family, serves the Midwest, High Plains and the Rockies with stores in Iowa, Minnesota, Nebraska, South Dakota, Wyoming, Colorado, Idaho and Kansas.

The 70-year-old company has had a presence in Kansas since 2020, Korbe said, and before last week’s action, its stores were in Lyons, Hillsboro, Russell, Beloit, Burlington, Norton and Seneca.

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The deal that triggered the change

On Feb. 17, 2021, Tractor Supply and Orscheln entered an agreement for Tractor Supply to acquire the smaller company for about $320 million.

However, the FTC, concerned about competition in communities with both Orscheln and Tractor Supply stores, ordered Tractor Supply to divest those dual store locations in 10 states.

Bomgaars was one of two farm retailers selected to purchase stores during a lengthy bidding process. Buchheit Enterprises Inc. of Illinois acquired 12 locations.

In addition, Tractor Supply agreed to sell the Orscheln corporate headquarters and a distribution center in Moberly, Missouri, to Bomgaars for approximately $10 million within 15 months after the close of the transaction, according to an earlier Tractor Supply release.

The sale resulted in Bomgaars growing by nearly 70% overnight, going from 107 stores to 180, Korbe said.

That makes it the second largest farm store chain in the nation, behind Tractor Supply, which operates more than 2,000 farm stores in every state except Alaska. Orscheln used to be No. 2.

Bomgaars expects to have grand opening celebrations down the road

“We’ve always prided ourselves in being a company that liked to grow by opportunity,” Korbe said. “When the opportunity presented itself to go into new consumer markets, we looked at it."

Korbe expects the new stores in Kansas will host grand openings sometime in the future, but “the scale and timing of that are yet to be determined.”

The divestiture order also contains a 10-year "prior approval" provision related to the buyers. It prohibits them from selling acquired stores for three years except to an acquirer that receives the prior approval of the FTC. And then, for the next seven years, buyers are required to get prior Commission approval to sell their acquired store to a buyer with another farm store within 60 miles.

This article originally appeared on The Hutchinson News: Topeka Orscheln Farm store sold to Bomgaars Supply as part of deal