Wenger Manufacturing Announces Death of Company Patriarch LaVon Wenger

Wenger Manufacturing announces the passing of LaVon Wenger on December 29, 2024. He was 89. LaVon was the son of Lou Wenger, one of the company’s original founders.

LaVon began his career at Wenger Manufacturing in 1955 after studying engineering at Kansas State University. In 1977, he was named President and led the company, along with his cousin Don, to achieve significant success and global reputation. Through the years, LaVon used his intuition and foresight to develop numerous innovations for extrusion cooking technology - especially for pet food processing. LaVon is the inventor on 44 US patents.

LaVon lived his entire life in the town of Sabetha, Kansas USA. This is where Wenger Manufacturing was founded in 1935 and continues as the company's global headquarters today. For decades, LaVon dedicated his time and talents to various community organizations to help Sabetha and neighboring towns become great places to live, work, and raise a family.

Scott Krebs, President of Wenger Group, said, 'LaVon's fingerprints are evident each day in the various solutions used by Wenger customers around the world. Many of his pioneering concepts over the years have become today's industry standards. His legacy continues to provide an example for us to be caring, fair, and respectful toward others. We are truly blessed to have known and worked with such a wonderful person and we extend our deepest sympathies to the Wenger family.'

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About Wenger

Founded in 1935, Wenger is the world's leading supplier of extrusion cooking systems for use in food, pet food, and aquatic feed processing. Wenger is a wholly-owned subsidiary of JBT Marel Corporation.

Source: Wenger Manufacturing

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About the company

About the company

With a little ingenuity and a lot of hard work, Joe and his brother, Louis Wenger, founded the Wenger Mixing Company in a small town in Kansas (USA) in 1935. They then designed a machine that mixed molasses with dry feed ingredients and thus they began to produce pellets in 1948.

The novel idea of the Wenger brothers created a worldwide industry. Seventy-five years later, Wenger Manufacturing, Inc. remains a family business committed to innovation in the extrusion market.

Today, Wenger offers a range of premium single-screw extruders, twin-screw extruders, dryers/coolers, coating systems, and control systems. A new generation of proud employees work for customer satisfaction in our multiple plants, in our world-class research and development center, and in sales and service offices around the world.

Wenger equipment is unmatched in quality. Perhaps even more important, it is the reputation we have built by having long-lasting partnerships with customers. Lasting because of our dedication, ingenuity, and responsiveness - and our promise to deliver on that commitment for generations to come.

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