Off the Map: Sheep farm doubles as supply business

WASHINGTON - Stan Potratz and his wife, Jean, did not set out to run a catalog business.

They just wanted to raise sheep and other animals on their acreage outside Washington.

But the Potratzes couldn't find a place in the United States to purchase the equipment that Stan had used in England, where he studied and worked from 1969 to 1977 on the British campus of the now-defunct Ambassador College.

So they started their own business.

'We introduced this unusual fencing,” Stan Potratz said. 'That created enough of an interest and audience, I said to myself, ‘maybe there's a business opportunity here.'”

Ultimately, Potratz said, 'the sheep operation didn't succeed but the business did.”

'I assumed the sheep operation would be huge but the business would be out of the garage and a sideline,” he added.

The Potratzes began selling supplies in 1979 under the name UP Farm supplies, and became incorporated in 1983 as Premier Sheep Supplies. By the late 1980s, the operation was profitable.

'We struggled while figuring out the basics of a mail order operation,” Potratz said. 'Her degree is in sociology and mine is in theology. I would take photos and write copy, and she put it into a catalog.”

The business, now known as Premier1Supplies, has grown to employ about 40 people, Potratz said, and maintains a website as well as three catalogs printed in Wisconsin and Iowa. There also are several buildings on the farm where Potratz grew up.

Along with the sheep, the Potratzes have cattle, meat goats, a horse and backyard chickens.

Much of the lambing is done indoors, Jean Potratz said.

'In order to make it, to make the sheep flock more profitable is to have them in buildings or under cover in the winter,” she said. 'Stan said when he came back from England he had forgotten about Iowa mud.”

'We have gone from having all sheep outside in the winter and lambing outside - which is pretty unpleasant for shepherd and sheep - to having all sheep by in large inside in the winter,” her husband added.

When the sheep are outdoors, the Potratzes use a variety of guard dogs, which are mountain breeds from Europe, as well as electric fences.

'Even though we run enough sheep to make it a commercial enterprise, if not for the business I don't know if we'd run sheep at all,” Potratz said. One reason is because the sheep industry in the United States has been declining since the late 1940s, Potratz said. According to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, Iowa ranked 10th in sheep production in 2012, the most recent year statistics were available.

Although the industry has been declining, Potratz said 95 percent of their customers come from the United States.

The Potratzes said there is a misconception that all of the company's items are purchased from abroad. Although many of the products come from overseas, some are purchased domestically.

'Some products are not available in the United States,” Jean Potratz said. 'We bring in unique products and introduce them to the industry. If we could get them from here we would.”

The couple takes a major trip abroad each year to visit suppliers.

'I grew up in a family that did very little travel all,” Stan Potratz said. 'Most of the summers I only went to town once for the county fair. and until I graduated high school the most distant trip I had was to Iowa City. I stayed overnight in Iowa City with my science class. I had no dreams or even aspirations for travel.”

Among the places the couple has visited are Germany, France, Britain, Turkey, Pakistan, China, New Zealand and Australia.

'We almost never buy from suppliers overseas unless we have met them and visited their premises,” Stan Potratz said.

The Potratzes test much of the equipment they are thinking of selling on their livestock.

'It allows us to keep touch with our customer base,” Stan Potratz said. 'We can write as one of them, and think as one of them.”