New Listowel Facility

    Premier Equipment, one of Ontario’s leading John Deere dealerships is merging its Mount Forest and Listowel staff together under one roof in its all-new facility in Listowel.

     “Challenging ourselves to be ‘best in Canada’ and a conviction of ‘continuous improvement’ helps guide us in our daily and long term goals at Premier. We are embarking on the next chapter of our business by investing in new facilities and infrastructure to help equip our teams to provide ‘best in Canada’ service,” says Ian Verbeek, Co-CEO/COO.

    The bringing together of the Listowel and Mount Forest teams is the first of a series of changes and investments that the dealership is making in its infrastructure over the next number of years. The company has a number of other active projects to improve facilities, including the building of a new facility in Norwich, which will see the merger of its Simcoe and Courtland operations – slated for the spring of 2022.

    “Our goal is to provide the resources to maximize efficiencies, increase the breadth and depth of our offering and growth for our teams in many ways,” says Allan Dueck, Co-CEO/CFO. “The new facility in Listowel represents more than twice the parts and service capability than the existing Mount Forest and Listowel operations combined – toping nearly 56,000 sq ft. This is an opportunity for us to enhance our service to customers in Perth, Huron and Wellington North – adding resources and leveraging the experience and capability of a larger team.”

    “Although it does mean change for our Mount Forest customers, we are excited to be bringing our staff teams together – and look to continue to provide service and support to the area with increased mobile service, parts and equipment pick-up and delivery,” says Store Manager, Tim Dowd.

    Currently employing over 30 staff members, the new operations in Listowel boasts over 19,500 sq ft of shop space to accommodate up to 20 technicians, additional mobile service vehicles (6 in total), overhead cranes and automated fluid systems to maximize efficiency and safety. The new facility will act as a significant parts warehouse for the dealership.

As we look forward to the next chapter of our business, joining our Mount Forest and Listowel teams under one roof - we want to take a moment to celebrate the past…The first John Deere dealership serving the Mount Forest community dates back to 1955, founded by Dave Holliday just south of the intersection of Hwy 6 and Hwy 89. The original building site remains – currently used as storage by the North Wellington Co-operative. Then in the 70’s Holliday’s moved the dealership north of town on Hwy 6. Dave Holliday unfortunately passed away in 1978, but the business carried on. Holliday’s acquired a location in Shelbure in the early 90’s. In 2005, both locations became part of Elmira Farm Service and then Premier Equipment in May of 2011. The Mount Forest store underwent several renovations in the late 90’s and again in 2014. We are very thankful to have called Mount Forest home for many years and we are committed to continued service to the Mount Forest community and surrounding area.

As we anticipate the opening of our new Listowel facility, we thought we’d take little trip down memory lane. John Deere equipment has been sold and supported in the Listowel area since the early 1950’s. Emerson Ruppen started a dealership in Kurtzville, and was eventually sold to George Burgers and named Perth Machinery in 1975. In April of 1979 the dealership moved to the present location. In 1988 the dealership was acquired by Scott Litt, Ron Mann and Rod Stone and renamed LMS Equipment. The original building was 9,100 sqft until an addition in the early 90’s brought the building up to a little over 12,300 feet, and ad-ditional upgrades over the years brough the building close to 20,000 sq ft. The 2000s welcomed mergers with Elmira Farm Service and the formation of Premier Equipment in 2011. Fast forward to 2021 – the new facility is over 35,000 sq ft, plus the existing building is being updated and retrofitted to warehouse additional parts and equipment - bringing the total covered space to over 56,000 sq ft.