‘Snowmageddon’ sends some green to Iowa snow shovel company

‘Snomageddon' on the nation's East Coast has been good to one Iowa company.

East Coast hardware stores that have never ordered a snow shovel from Monticello-based Yeoman & Co. have been setting up accounts in the past week, desperate to find a supplier still making shovels as winter blasts the area with record snowfalls.

“This late in the season, all our competition have switched over to producing their spring tools,” said Yeoman & Co. President Tom Yeoman. “We're the only game in town.”

Yeoman said his company usually ships the bulk of its winter products within 600 miles of its Monticello factory. In the past week, it's shipped orders to Pennsylvania, Virginia, North Carolina, and Kentucky.

The orders for snow shovels usually are drying up this time of year, as most retail chains are content to sell out their remaining inventories rather than carrying over unsold items until next winter.

Not so this year, as the snow continues to fall, and fall, and fall...

“We've had multiple stores ordering daily,” Yeoman said. “Some of these guys are brand new customers to us, because their usual suppliers are out of inventory.”

Kike its rivals, Yeoman & Co. is already shipping spring tools. But Yeoman said the company has the flexibility to continue producing and shipping winter tools. Much of the work is automated, so the orders haven't required the company to go into overtime.

“We can get out 10,000 tools a day,” Yeoman said.

Yeoman & Co. employs about 20 full-time employees. The company's winter tools include snow rakes, ice scrapers, and several designs of shovel. But the “winter tools” are only part of a much larger product line that includes wheelbarrows and tools for gardening, yard work, and even logging.

Snow remains important to the company.

“We only ask three things: Early deep and often,” Yeoman quipped.

In nearby Hopkinton, a producer of ice melting product said the winter's also going well.

Sno Go Inc. in Hopkinton said sales aren't setting any records, owner Rick Kramer said, but “It's been above average.”

Sno Go doesn't sell its product to the east coast, but “I wish I did now,” Kramer said.

Sno Go distributes into nine states. Kramer said the company sold more product out of state than in Iowa this year, contrary to the usual pattern. He said orders from Colorado, North Dakota and South Dakota have been good.