68 PEOPLE FOCUSED ON RESTAURANTS

Bluestem is a part of the Schier brand family, and born out of Schier’s focus on serving the U.S. restaurant community. While Bluestem is staffed separately, we share the same passion, the same pedigree, and the same campus as our Schier coworkers.

“Built With Schier Inside”

Bluestem pulls from Schier’s decades-long expertise in the U.S. restaurant and sewer communities. We speak the language of each fluently, and translate between the two so that they better understand and value each other. We deliver that translation through the industry’s only grease-line management platform that removes cost and hassle for restaurants, and provides perfectly compliant wastewater to the city.

A Story of Focus

In 2002, after sensing an underserved market, a small Milwaukee area manufacturer named Schier made the decision to focus on an unsolved problem - restaurant grease clogging city sewers. The company had little cash and about 10 employees, but what resources it had it devoted entirely to the cause.

By 2006, those humble investments bore fruit as Schier invented a new product category (high capacity hydromechanical grease interceptors) and the product that has come to define it, the Great Basin model GB-250. Four years after launch, the GB-250 had taken off, forcing Schier out of its small, snow-laden shop and “south” to a larger building in the Kansas City suburb of Edwardsville, KS.

The first GB-250, circa 2006
Today’s GB-250 Grease Interceptor, the industry standard

Caption: Schier team discusses the new Safety star for grease interceptor lids

Caption: The Schier team in Edwardsville, KS HQ, 2012

In Edwardsville, the “focus on grease” mantra really took hold. While Schier still offered products other than grease interceptors, the Great Basin series was stealing the show. Listening to Engineer, Restaurant, and Sewer Operator feedback, Schier expanded the series to include 7 different models. The company began assembling a nationwide sales force and secured distribution with plumbing wholesalers coast-to-coast.

In 2013, the inevitable happened, and Schier made the bold decision to sell-off and exit all of it’s non-grease product categories (eventually becoming an independently owned and operated company Striem, which is also located in the Kansas City metro area and remains a friendly peer).

A New Promise

The time had come to go “all in”. With just one remaining product line and only a handful of models to sell, Schier emerged with an obvious and memorable new tagline - LIFETIME GUARANTEED GREASE INTERCEPTORS.

Outgrowing Edwardsville

By 2020, business expansion had again forced Schier to relocate, and the company moved across the Kaw River to its current and “forever” home in Shawnee, KS.

Caption: Dirt work begins on the new 28-acre Shawnee, KS campus, early Spring 2020

Caption: Schier Logo being installed on the building

Caption: Day One at the New Shawnee, KS Campus

“They Took The Job Seriously”

State-of-the-art Grease Interceptor Test Lab

Feeling trim and fit, Schier redoubled efforts to understand its market. Employees questioned everything and left no stone unturned - spending hours in restaurant kitchens, interviewing city F.O.G. personnel, standing with plumbers on construction sites as restaurants were being built and interceptors were being installed, witnessing grease interceptors being pumped out in the heat of midday and in the wee hours of the night, co-designing grease interceptor systems with plumbing engineers, sitting on national, state, and city plumbing and sewer code development councils, creating new product certifications for the industry, testing existing certifications, developing standardized interceptor sizing methodology for the industry to use, redesigning products multiple times per year as feature requests came in, each time retesting them using thousands of pounds of hot lard.

Suffice to say, Schier took the job seriously.

Caption: Schier’s new state-of-the art ASME A112.14.3 grease interceptor test rig.

So seriously in fact, that the company was spending more time solving restaurant and sewer grease problems in one week than the closest competitor was spending in a month, maybe even in a year. It ammassed data and expertise that no other organization had. Because of this, Schier became the go-to when industry veterans needed help solving weird and unique restaurant grease problems.

Today, eleven years after “focusing on grease”, Schier is the unquestioned product and knowledge leader in the treatment of grease and food-laden restaurant wastewater.

Caption: Engineering Director Ben Brown gives a tour of the ASME test rig.

Beyond the Grease Interceptor, Launching Bluestem

City sewer operators appreciated that Schier made a great grease interceptor, but even the best grease interceptor, if not properly maintained, will fail and pass grease to the sewer. In the same way, plumbing engineers loved to specify a great product for their restaurant clients, but knew that if they were not properly maintained they would become a headache.

After years of focusing on making a better grease trap, Schier wondered if it was also uniquely suited to provide a better maintenance solution.

It was natural that the call for a better solution to grease interceptor pump-out found the ears of the Schier team.

“Restaurants Win, Sewers Win”

Restaurants don’t want a better grease trap, or easier/quicker maintenance, they want to forget their grease trap even exists. This would require a grease-line that performs day in and day out, in the background - no clogs, no smells, no surprise costs, no compliance issues,. They want a grease-line operating at its peak efficiency, 100% of the time.
Sewer operators don’t want to “get better” at hassling restaurants to stay in compliance, they would prefer never to talk with them (unless it was to compliment the chef after dining). For this to happen, they need restaurant grease-lines performing quietly, day in and day out, in the background - no clogs, no smells, no compliance issues. They want a grease-line operating at its peak efficiency, 100% of the time.

The Win-Win Solution

Using Schier’s deep knowledge and experience with both the restaurant and sewer communities, create a grease interceptor service product that is valuable to both. The industry’s first and only proactive grease-line management service customized to the code requirements of each city. A service that provides predictable cost and operation for restaurants, and predictable compliance for sewer operators.

The Bluestem Promise

Every grease-line that is managed by Bluestem is one more grease-line that restaurants can forget and city sewer operators can count on for perfectly compliant wastewater.

Built With “Schier Inside”

Bluestem pulls from Schier’s decades-long expertise in the U.S. restaurant and sewer communities. We speak the language of each fluently, and our service translates between these two communities so that they better understand, respect, and value each other.

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What’s with the Name?

Located on the doorstep of the Kansas Flint Hills and the Great Plains, we named the company for the majestic bluestem grass which once stretched in a waving sea all the way to the Rockies.

“Deeply Rooted”

The bluestem’s golden shoots and purple tassels are distinctive, but it's true nature and most defining characteristic lies below the surface. With the deepest root system on the prairie, bluestem anchors the soil against wind and rain, sprouting new grass after prairie fires, and reaching nearly 10 feet down into the earth to find water and nutrients in even the toughest drought. In a similar way, our value and strength lie “below the surface” - our deep roots in the restaurant and sewer industries.

Those deep roots tap over two decades of and on-the-job experience with more than 250,000 restaurants and relationships with over 10,000 city sewer offices. When it comes to commercial kitchen wastewater, we have literally seen it all, making us uniquely suited to provide an expert level grease-line service solution.