For years, many Midwestern residents have been perplexed by the presence of two iconic retailers with similar sounding names: Farm & Fleet and Fleet Farm.
There are myths about the relationship between the two companies (typically involving a rift between two brothers that caused the creation of two separate companies) and comedian Charlie Berens has a funny bit about the confusion between the two (a video of it on YouTube has been viewed 275,000 times).
Founded in 1955 by brothers William Claude Blain and Norman Albert “Bert” Blain, Janesville-based Blain’s Farm & Fleet has 45 stores in Wisconsin, Illinois, Iowa and Michigan and 5,500 employees. The business is owned by Jane Blain Gilbertson, Bert Blain’s daughter. After leading the company for 10 years as CEO, she stepped down from that role last year but remains involved as executive chairman.
Appleton-based Fleet Farm was also founded in 1955, by Stewart Mills Sr. and his sons Henry Mills II and Stewart Mills Jr. In 2016 Mills Fleet Farm was sold to private equity firm KKR. Two years later, the “Mills” part of the brand’s name was dropped. Fleet Farm now has 50 stores in Iowa, Minnesota, North Dakota, South Dakota and Wisconsin.
So, what’s the true story about the relationship between these retailers with similarly sounding names, founded in the same year, both based in Wisconsin and operating in the Midwest?
According to the Fleet Farm website: “Blain’s Farm and Fleet and Mills Fleet Farm are two different companies. There never has been any business or family connection between them. There are no agreements between Blain’s and Mills on territory or anything else. Each company just grew organically, in its own geographic area.”
Jane Blain Gilbertson recently participated in a keynote conversation at BizTimes Media’s annual Family & Closely Held Business Summit. In an interview prior to the event, she explained the relationship between the two retailers.
In the mid-1950s retailers by law were not allowed to sell merchandise at a discount directly to consumers. They were only allowed to sell discounted goods to other businesses. The law said that someone who owned five or more engines was considered a fleet operator and therefore was a business.
The Blain brothers, who already owned a farm implements and auto parts business, figured that farmers, with all of their equipment, would own at least five engines and would qualify as a business they could sell discounted merchandise to. That’s why they named the store that they created Farm & Fleet.
The Blain brothers pioneered the idea of a discount supply store, after they learned about the fleet loophole from a couple in North Dakota.
“Their Napa parts dealer told them about this couple who had figured out this loophole,” Blain Gilbertson said. “They said, ‘We’ve got to go meet these people.’ So they drove out to Minot, North Dakota. They became dear friends of ours. Told them how they figured this out. (The Blain brothers) said, ‘This is brilliant. Now we know that we have a model that we can open up our store. We think we should be able to sell our products to our neighbors at the price we think we should sell them, not what the government tells us to sell them at. It was like this light bulb went off. This was the thing that was the foundation to start the business.”
Everything in the store had two prices on it. Customers who had a card certifying that they owned a “fleet” could purchase items at the discount price.
The Blain brothers owned three small auto dealerships in northern Wisconsin and had gotten to know the Mills brothers, twin brothers Stew and Hank Mills, who were also in the auto dealership business. After learning about the fleet loophole, the Blain brothers told the Mills brothers about it and their plans to open a store, Blain Gilbertson said.
“(The Mills brothers) were like, ‘Wow, we want to do this too,” she said.
The Blain brothers opened the first Farm & Fleet store in June of 1955 and the Mills brothers opened their first store in the fall of the same year.
The couple from North Dakota decided to create a co-op with small retail groups to increase their purchasing power and buy products at lower prices. The Blain brothers, the Mills brothers and few others joined the co-op.
“We continued this relationship with the Mills because we were part of this co-op together. They worked very closely together through those years,” Blain Gilbertson said. “I grew up with them. I literally learned how to water ski at their home on Gull Lake, Minnesota. They came to my wedding. They were very close friends. We vacationed with them often.”
In 1960 the Blain brothers decided to focus all of their attention on the Farm & Fleet business so they moved to Janesville and sold their auto dealerships.
Over the years, both the Farm & Fleet and Fleet Farm businesses grew. At first they were in separate areas, but as each grew and added more store locations their markets began to overlap.
The Mills brothers had received permission from the Blain brothers to use their store name, but flipped, Blain Gilbertson said.
“My dad always said that was the single biggest business mistake he made because he didn’t protect the name at that time,” she said. “They just never thought there would be any confusion because they were in completely different geographies. And then as we grew we started to bump into each other.”
In an attempt to differentiate and alleviate confusion about the similarly named stores, Farm & Fleet became Blain’s Farm & Fleet and Fleet Farm became Mills Fleet Farm.
“So, people will argue with me (about the history of the companies),” Blain Gilbertson said. “It’s funny. I’ll say, ‘OK, you know that it’s called Mills Fleet Farm and we’re Blain’s Farm & Fleet. So, it’s not two brothers. (Some people will say) ‘Well, which one was so mad that they changed their name? It must have been brother-in-laws.’
“No, not-brother-in laws. No connection other than they worked together, they were dear friends for many, many years,” Blain Gilbertson said.
