The Stapelbroek family used to live in the Netherlands where the members worked as blacksmiths and farmers on a small piece of land. Life was comfortable and peaceful. They lived in a large house with running water, electrical power supply, and even owned a telephone. But the Second World War ended this, it devastated Europe from 1939 to 1945. The war left a huge number of dead people and a trail of destruction.

Back then, the years were harder. In 1945 the war ended officially, but there were rumors of a new one. To escape from an economic crisis and prevent the sons from serving the army, in case of a new war, Johannes Bernardus Stapelbroek and his family decided to immigrate to Brazil.

After travelling for four weeks on a ship, the Stapelbroek family arrived at Santos harbor on April 19th, 1949.  Next, they headed to Ribeirão Farm, in Holambra, state of São Paulo, where they started to work in a cooperative organization.

Picture 1: Stapelbroek family house in the Netherlands. Figure 2: Stapelbroek family arrival at Santos harbor, in the state of São Paulo, in Brazil.

The Stapelbroek family decided to come to Não-Me-Toque city, south region of Brazil, encouraged by Dutch priests and due to tough working and growing conditions in Holambra, state of São Paulo. Johannes Bernardus Stapelbroek formed a partnership with Gerrit Jan Rauwers and together they opened a small blacksmith named Stapelbroek, Rauwers & Cia Ltda. They assembled and performed maintenance in imported agricultural machinery from Europe. This machinery boosted agriculture on a large scale. The need to adapt the machines to the soil, crops and weather conditions boosted new implements manufacturing.

Picture 1: Johannes Bernardus Stapelbroek and his wife, Johanna

Rauwers and Stapelbroek families ended the partnership and on 29^th August 1960, Stapelbroek & Cia Ltda, Stara, is established. First, it was a small repair shop that worked on and adapted agricultural machinery to follow agriculture development in the area. Johannes Bernardus Stapelbroek and his sons Johannes, Franciscus, and Harrie started to manufacture agricultural machines, and in 1968 they launched the first steerable-wheeled weeder equipped with suspended shanks. This was just the beginning of Stara’s tradition of agricultural-solution engineering.

Picture 1: The first Stara factory building. Picture 2: The first steerable-wheeled weeder equipped with suspended shanks.  Picture 3: Sprayer manufactured by Stara. Picture 4: Additionally, Stara manufactured other pieces of equipment such as hospital beds for whole year income.

Products as the weeder and harrows provided the company to grow significantly. So, the small blacksmith needed to be enlarged to meet all the market demand in several regions in Brazil. It encouraged the family to have a new factory built. Subsequently, Stara was transferred to an 8,000-meter building where the manufacturing process remains in the headquarters nowadays.

The crisis of 1982 was a major economic crisis, due to dollar appreciation, which affected mainly the industry. Stara had asked for a USD loan to have a new factory building built.  The company debt increased significantly, causing payment delay to suppliers and employees, and almost leading Stara to bankruptcy.

Franciscus Johannes Stapelbroek, Seu Chico (Mr Chico in Portuguese) provided tremendous support to Stara in these tough times. As the founder’s son, Seu Chico worked the first years at Stara, and at the same time, he dreamed of being a farmer as well. In 1982, he became a respected farmer in the area and saved money to prevent his family’s dream from dying. This was when the new generation of directors took over the company, featuring modern management and keeping the founders’ values.

Picture 1: Franciscus Johannes Stapelbroek, Seu Chico. Picture 2: Seu Chico, Dona Anna and Fernando Stapelbroek Trennepohl, in the family agricultural activities.

Gilson Trennepohl and Susana Stapelbroek got married, and Gilson started working for Stara, bringing in his vision for innovative products which resulted in the creation and anticipation of trends for agribusiness. Due to his vision, Stara lineup of products was enlarged and innovative products were developed.

Picture: Susana and Gilson

Stara launches front end loaders, the PADs, which become the absolute market leaders in Brazil.

Another novelty of Stara was the Asa Laser launching, the first subsoiler in Brazil featuring an automatic disarm system, in which the implement and the tractor are protected against sudden brakes.

Stara started developing equipment for Precision Agriculture for trends anticipation that would lead to crop yield increase. The first controllers were imported and they led Stara to learn and dominate this technology, which Stara itself started developing.

In 2000, the first project of precision agriculture was developed. Named Aquarius and directed to commercial purposes, this project aims at searching agricultural machinery that enables precision agriculture performance. Aquarius additionally maintains the greatest database in the world.

Picture 1: Imported controller for fertilizer and variable rate application. Picture 2: Aquarius project is created.

The company shares were granted to the daughter of Franciscus Stapelbroek, Susana Stapelbroek Trennepohl, to his son-in-law Gilson Trennepohl. The equity control of the company was given to his grandchildren Fernando, Átila, and Nicole. So, the third and fourth family generations acquired the company. The company had its factory headquarters enlarged, which resulted in product portfolio increase, the brand became solid, and more doors were opened to both national and international markets. Brava corn head was the first product launched in this new Stara period.

Picture 1: The Stapelbrok Trennepohl family takes over the Stara equity control. Picture 2: Brava corn head.

Stara starts producing planters, becoming the most complete lineup of agricultural machinery in Brazil and pioneer in variable-rate planting.

Picture 1: Victória planter   Picture 2: Prima seeder.    

Inspired by its evolution philosophy, Stara made strategic investments that ensured its market share and sustainable growing. More products were added to the lineup, such as Gladiador self-propelled sprayers which became the only self-propelled sprayers of Brazil factory-equipped with technological features.

Stara turned 50 years and is proud to be a family business whose management sticks to transparency, sustainable growth, trust, commitment, in addition to profit sharing. Stara is conducted professionally and with responsibility, embracing planning and strategies that maintain its solid brand, and consequently keeping the company even more present in the global scenario. Stara had its branch in the city of Carazinho opened. The branch produces cast parts used to manufacture the company’s machinery.

In the same year, Stara introduced the first and only self-propelled sprayer equipped with central booms in the world, Imperador 3100. A new project in the world that had patent granted in several countries, highlighting Stara, making the company even stronger, and imposing its magnificence as an innovative brand technology developer.

For planting lineup, Stara launched Absoluta, a large planting equipment for seeds only. Another important launching was Topper 4500, the first controller developed in Brazil for Precision Agriculture.

Picture 1: The branch opening in the city of Carazinho, state of Rio Grande do Sul. Picture 2: Imperador, the first self-propelled sprayer with central booms. Picture 3: Absoluta. Picture 4: Topper 4500.

In 2012, a big dream of Stara starts to come true. To have its exclusive dealership network. By means of the dealerships, Stara is closer to the farmer to provide quality services and excellent customer service. At first, there were five stores that later became dealers. These were extended to Brazil agricultural regions, in Paraguay and Bolivia.

Another large step in the company history stairway was Stara Finance. Due to the statute signature that allowed the company to provide the customer to ask for loans directly to the factory. In 2013, the first loan was granted by Stara Finance and signed by Susana Stapelbroek Trennepohl, when she was the CFO. Stara Finance operates to provide loans for farmers in all agricultural regions from Brazil to assist farmers faster when they require loans to purchase agricultural machinery.

Picture 1: Dealership network. Picture 2: signature of the first loan provided by Stara Finance.

To manufacture more machinery, Stara had another branch opened in the city of Santa Rosa, state of Rio Grande do Sul. There, the factory building is seven-thousand-meter large.

The year of the inauguration of a broad and modern facility that besides housing the Human Resources Department, Engineering Department, and Purchasing Department, comprises a dining hall with capacity of 2.5 thousand meals a day, and there are four different options for meals.

Evolution never stops at Stara. Early 2015 SAP (System Analysis and Program Development) was implemented officially, becoming the data processing system of the company.

Picture 1: Stara new building for housing Human Resources Department, Engineering Department, and Purchasing Department. Picture 2: Employees’ dining hall. Picture 3: Estrela. Picture 4: Super Bruttus 30000. Picture 5: Topper 5500.

In 2016, Stara launched four important products: Imperador 3.0 self-propelled, Princesa planter, Hércules 6.0 self-propelled spreader, and Brava + corn head.

Imperador 3.0 is the first self-propelled machine in the world that can provide two operations. In other words, it is a spreader and at the same time, a sprayer.

To manufacture its new machines, Stara had one more assembly unit built. This new facility is wide, modern, with twenty-three-thousand-meter-square-factory building, and designed to meet sustainability concepts, and more manufacturing efficiency.

Picture 1: Imperador 3.0. Picture 2: Princesa. Picture 3: Hércules 6.0 Picture 4: Brava +. Picture 5: New factory building with 23000 m².

In 2017, Stara presented 8 launches, following its principle of constant evolution.

For planting, Stara presented Cinderela and the new Absoluta, in addition to Stara Row-by-Row Shutoff System, the technology that enables the automatic shutoff of planting rows exactly when the monitor detects an area where planting was previously performed.

Other products that debuted were the grain carts Reboke Ninja and Reboke Inox (Stainless steel), and the Up & Down – Hydraulic Lift System for Imperador 3.0.

Picture 1: Absoluta equipped with Row-by-Row Shutoff System. Picture 2: 8 launches at Agrishow 2017.

To strengthen Stara’s planting market share, the company introduces Guapa rice seeder line. Both Guapa and Guapa Supra are excellent choices when it comes to an accurate rice seeding.

In the same year another Stara’s greater innovation was launched. Imperador 3.0. The self-propelled is a spreader, a sprayer, and now it is also a pneumatic seeder equipped with Ponte Verde System (A system that enables cover crop seeding through the booms of the machine).

For more farmer purchasing convenience, Stara becomes partner with Embracon and launches its pre-purchase financing pool in 2018. By means of Stara pre-purchase financing pool, the farmer can schedule their machine purchase by paying monthly and with no interests.

Picture 1: Guapa Supra. Picture 2: Imperador 3.0. Picture 3: Agreement signature of Stara pre-purchase financing pool.

Stara innovated one more time by introducing self-propelled machines Imperador 3000 and 4000 that are equipped with the highest spraying efficiency and several technological features.

Stara has also launched Conecta, a remote access service that connects the machine, in real-time, to the Stara After-Sales technician in the factory.

Additionally, Stara has presented planting line innovations, Absoluta 61, Guapa Supra Winter, and Syncro System. This last one allows up to four machines to work synchronized and sharing information in the same field.

Stara has always dreamed of operating overseas. In 2019, the company gave its first step to make this dream come true. The first factory unit was open in a foreign country: Stara in Argentina, located in Alvear, county of Santa Fé. In addition to the factory building, Stara in Argentina has dealerships throughout that country to provide state-of-the-art technology to Argentinian farmers.

Picture 1: Imperador 4000. Picture 2: Conecta. Picture 3: Syncro Picture 4: factory building in Argentina

In early 2020, Gilson Trennepohl, passed the position of Stara CEO to his son Átila Stapelbroek Trennepohl, following the tradition of family succession. Johannes Bernardus Stapelbroek’s great-grandson is responsible for the company headquarters, branches, and operations in Argentina.

Gilson Trennepohl took over the presidency of Stara Board of Directors. Susana Stapelbroek Trennepohl is now the executive vice president, Fernando Stapelbroek Trennepohl is still in charge of the family farms and a member of the Board of Directors while Nicole Stapelbroek Trennepohl is the CCO of Stara Finance.

Picture 1: Stapelbroek-Trennepohl family. Picture 2: Átila Stapelbroek Trennepohl