Citizens LLC

What Citizens LLC does

Citizens LLC is a privately held agricultural grain elevator company operating four physical locations across central Michigan (Vermontville, Charlotte Otto Rd., Charlotte Cochran Rd., and Potterville). The company purchases, stores, and sells commodity grains — corn, soybeans, red wheat, and food-grade soybeans — from local farmers and agricultural producers, pricing grain off futures markets plus basis and publishing transparent discount schedules for each commodity. The customer base is exclusively regional agricultural producers in Michigan.

The company's product portfolio centers on grain purchasing and sales, supported by a real-time cash bid platform (Citizens Cash Bids) and a digital marketplace (Citizens Marketplace) accessible via web and mobile applications on Apple and Android. All market data, futures quotes, and weather information are provided through a third-party partnership with Barchart; no proprietary trading or analytics engine is operated by Citizens LLC. The company differentiates from generic grain elevators through its Nature's Genetics sub-brand, which offers Non-GMO Project Verified soybean varieties (2.4, 1926, 9425, 9430) that enable producers to access premium specialty-crop markets.

Business economics are commodity-spread driven: revenue is generated through the bid-ask spread on grain purchases and sales, plus storage and handling fees, with no SaaS or subscription pricing model. The company employs 1-10 people across its four locations, consistent with a small regional operator rather than a scaled agribusiness. Ownership is private with no institutional investors, private equity backing, or public shareholders identified, and the entity (legally Citizens L.L.C.) was formerly known as Star of the West Milling Co. No revenue, funding, or financial performance is publicly disclosed.

Name

Citizens LLC

Legal name

Citizens L.L.C.

Website

https://citizenselevator.com

Company type

Private

Founded year

1988

Operating status

Operating

Headcount range

1–10 employees

Short description

Citizens LLC is a privately held Michigan grain elevator company operating four physical locations that purchase and sell corn, soybeans, wheat, and Non-GMO food-grade soybeans from local farmers, supported by a Barchart-powered digital marketplace platform.

Ownership category

akta.pro rank

Product category

Agricultural Grain Services

NAICS

Farm Product Warehousing and Storage (493130), Grain and Field Bean Merchant Wholesalers (424510)

SIC

Wholesale-Farm Product Raw Materials (5150), Agricultural Services (700)

akta.pro primary industry

Country & Inland Grain Elevators (Receiving/Shipping) (AFAOAAAA)

akta.pro secondary industries

Grain Merchandising & Origination Facilities (AFAOAAAD), Grain Blending & Segregation (Identity-Preserved/Non-GMO) (AFAOAAAG)

Keywords

• Grain elevator services
• Agricultural commodity marketing
• Non-gmo soybean varieties
• Cash grain bidding
• Agricultural market data

Headquarters

HQ city

Charlotte, Michigan

HQ country

United States

HQ region

North America

Offices4 records

Markets served

GTM type

B2B

Offering type

Services

Cost components

Operations, Supply Chain, Personnel, Marketing or Sales, Infrastructure

Distribution channels2 records

Marketing channels3 records

Core offering

Citizens LLC operates grain elevators across four Michigan locations, purchasing and storing agricultural commodities including corn, soybeans, red wheat, and food grade soybeans from regional farmers. The company provides real-time cash bid pricing through its marketplace platform, weather and market data services, and Non-GMO Project Verified soybean varieties marketed under the Nature's Genetics brand.

Product overview

Citizens LLC (also known as Star of the West Milling Co.) operates as an agricultural commodities company offering a unified grain elevator service. The core offering consists of grain purchasing and sales through multiple Michigan locations (Vermontville, Otto Rd./Charlotte, Potterville, and Charlotte), supported by a real-time Cash Bids Platform powered by Barchart market data. The company differentiates through its Nature's Genetics Non-GMO Soybeans sub-brand, providing Non-GMO Project Verified varieties. Additional services include the Citizens LLC Marketplace for digital transactions and Agricultural Weather Services for farming decision support. The product portfolio functions as a single integrated service rather than a modular platform architecture.

Differentiator

Problem solved

Functional benefit

Brands

• Nature's Genetics: Non-GMO food grade soybean program

Products and services

• Grain Purchasing and Sales

Segments1 record

Ideal customer profiles1 record

Technology focussed No

API detail

Has API

No

API docs

API detail

Core technology

AI maturity

App detail

Feature2 records

Partnerships

Two partnerships are on record, tiered core.

• BarchartcoreTechnology or IntegrationBarchart provides the market data infrastructure, commodity quotes, futures data, and weather information for the Citizens LLC website. The platform hosts real-time and delayed market quotes for grains, livestock, and dairy commodities.
• Non-GMO ProjectcoreStrategic or Co-development PartnerNon-GMO Project provides verification services for Citizens LLC's Nature's Genetics soybean varieties (2.4, 1926, 9425, and 9430), enabling the company to market these as Non-GMO Project Verified products.

Recent moves4 records

Expansion highlights3 records

Regional players

• Sunrise Cooperative: A Midwest agricultural cooperative with grain origination, storage, and farm services in Ohio and surrounding states, comparable in elevator-based business model and producer customer base, though operating in a different primary geography.

Direct peers

• Co-Alliance Cooperative: A farmer-owned agricultural cooperative operating grain elevators and agronomy services across Indiana and Michigan, directly comparable in business model (grain purchasing, storage, farm services) and regional Midwestern footprint.
• Lansing Trade Group: A U.S. grain merchandiser focused on physical commodity origination and trading, with overlapping activity in corn, soybean, and wheat merchandising that competes for the same farmer bushels Citizens LLC depends on.
• Michigan Agricultural Commodities: A Michigan-based grain elevator and farm services operator with multiple locations across the state, directly competing with Citizens LLC for producer bushels and offering similar cash bid, storage, and merchandising services to corn and soybean farmers.

Broad incumbents

• Green Plains Inc. A leading U.S. ethanol producer that also operates an extensive grain origination and elevator network across the Midwest, competing directly with Citizens LLC for corn bushels from producers in the same growing region.
• Cargill, Inc. One of the largest global agribusinesses with extensive grain origination, storage, and trading operations in the U.S. Midwest, including Michigan; competes with Citizens LLC for producer bushels and offers far broader logistics and risk-management capabilities.
• Perdue AgriBusiness: The agricultural inputs, grain origination, and oilseed processing arm of Perdue Farms, with grain elevator operations on the U.S. East Coast and Mid-Atlantic; comparable in elevator-based grain merchandising, though its geography and downstream feed demand differ.
• Archer Daniels Midland (ADM): A global agribusiness giant with a large U.S. grain elevator and merchandising network, directly competing for Midwestern corn and soybean bushels with substantially greater scale, rail access, and capital than Citizens LLC.
• Bunge Limited: A major global agribusiness with significant grain origination and merchandising in the U.S. Midwest; competes with Citizens LLC for producer bushels while operating a much broader processing and trading platform.
• The Andersons, Inc. A large U.S. agribusiness with grain elevator and merchandising operations across the Midwest, overlapping with Citizens LLC in corn, soybean, and wheat origination but with far broader scale, rail access, and capital.

Market position

Strengths4 records

Weaknesses4 records

Competitive moat2 records

Key risks5 records

Key highlights6 records

Customer concentration

• Facebookfacebook.com/Citizens-LLC-176396685744335
• LinkedInlinkedin.com/company/citizens-l-l-c

Compliance1 record

Revenue estimate

Valuation estimate

Number of profiles

Funding overview

Funding rounds

Investors

Funding detail is available on the Subscription and Enterprise plan.Contact sales →

M&A

Investments

M&A and investment is available on the Subscription and Enterprise plan.Contact sales →

Frequently asked questions about Citizens LLC