Farmers work long hours, and hunters are often up and about their business before the sun breaks open the day. These early and late hours can make it difficult for them to make it to the store during normal business hours for necessities like corn. Well, Franklin County now has a solution for that problem.

Dec. 20 Thomas and Shannon Murray held a ribbon cutting ceremony unveiling their new corn machine they purchased from the company Maize Kraize.

“It’s about convenience. There are people who can’t make normal store business hours,” Thomas said.

The machine is 24/7 self-service. Consumers can choose the amount of corn they need and pay directly at the machine. For first-timers, a handy instruction panel tells exactly how to pay and operate the machine.

Sen. Gerald Dial (R-Lineville) attended the ribbon cutting and requested to be the first person to purchase corn from the machine.

“Sen. Dial worked with me on getting the machine approved. He’s been a big help,” state Rep. Johnny Mack Morrow said.

Dial added, “We saw history made here today. It’s going to make a real difference in the community.”

According to the producers of the machine and owners of Maize Kraize Ben Burleson and Jason Spiller, this is the first legal self-service corn machine of its kind in Alabama. Burleson and Spiller started Maize Kraize last year.

“I’ve been a farmer almost all my life, and I was looking for a way to market corn and other products directly to the public,” Burleson said.

Spiller, who has known Burleson all his life, brought the engineering and software knowledge to the business and handled compliance regulations and rules for building the machine.

“About mid-summer we started redesigning it so it would be compliant with (National Type Evaluation Program) and (National Institute of Standards and Technology),” Spiller said.

NTEP, Spiller explained, deals with evaluating the weights and measures of devices like the corn machine to make sure they are compliant with NIST, which essentially writes the industry and technology rules.

“We’re blessed to have had things fall into place and lead us along the way,” Burleson said.

Maize Kraize is also working on two other machines in Marion County.

The Franklin County corn machine is located on Highway 24 East at the intersection of Highway 24 and Highway 77.