LMS Ag Equipment held a sod turning on Wednesday for the company's new Steinbach location, along Highway 12 north of the city.

General Manager Abe Penner talked about the decision to expand into the Steinbach area.

"We have actually been planning to come to Steinbach for about ten years and then about six years ago my brother Will took over from my dad, so that changed our plans a little bit. The succession thing became more important than expanding and so we've always had, even growing up as a small child, was not far from Steinbach, so there was always a bit of a link to this area. We felt that the culture from the Winkler area and Steinbach area, even though there's a lot of differences, there's also a lot of similarities. Just to keep those values that we value at home and carry them over into Steinbach was important to us...The brands that we sell fit really well with this area with the amount of livestock and grain producers, with the Versatile brand being local in Winnipeg. Also, with the AGCO brand, it has some very suited equipment for this area."

Penner says the plan is to have the 15,000 square foot facility completed for the spring of 2023.

He commented on the company's core values.

"Even though we're going to have two locations, to have a family-oriented dealership where everybody matters is at our core. There's three things that we value, Will and myself have made this our core values, and that is our faith obviously is very, very important and a lot of decisions based around that, but then it's the families and then the farmers. Having the farmers valued as family members is how we try to approach everything and try to relate to them as if we were in their shoes and be able to take care of them."

Penner noted that LMS Ag Equipment (formerly Little Morden Service) recently changed its name with plans to expand into other communities.

LMS Ag Equipment