The extreme winter has meant extreme demand of snow equipment — with many dealers selling out of equipment such as snow blowers. In early January, Dan Ariens, president and chief executive officer of the Ariens Co. said in an interview that they had a backlog of 7,000 orders. What’s happening now with the company?

Ariens says that the “polar vortex” weather scenario brought extremely cold temperatures but didn’t bring heavy snowfalls. That reprieve helped the manufacturer catch up on production and orders.

“I walked through the plant today and our order backlog is down to about 2,500,” Ariens said in a recent interview with Rural Lifestyle Dealer. 

“We were all under forecast for this year. The dealers were and we were,” he says. “But dealers know this drill. They go from preparing hundreds of units for pick up to no one coming in the door.”

“Dealers make a lot of money in this environment and so do landscape contractors. It’s good for the economy,” he says. “We don’t say we’re the ‘King of Snow’ for no reason. We’re #1 in the industry and our products are the first ones selling off the floor.”

Ariens says their new model year begins this month, so they’ll start converting production to lawn care equipment.