Best Diversified Products

Best Diversified Products of Jonesboro would rather be the best than the most. The conveyor manufacturer will continue to turn out the best in the business, CEO Jim Markley said, even if that means taking a slight hit in overall sales.

“The pressure we have today is to compromise our quality to sell more products and have more sales,” Markley said. “We’re simply not going to do that. We’re going to continue to be the highest quality in the industry.”

The company offers a product that it says lasts two to five times longer than that of the competition and is backed by one of the industry’s strongest warranties. “We believe in our product,” Markley said.

Best Diversified, which was a finalist for the Northeast Arkansas Business of the Year award in this size category, makes a complete line of conveyors used by trucking and delivery companies to load and unload their trucks.

The product mix ranges from gravity expandable conveyors to telescopic boom conveyors that help primarily with fluid loading, the process in which trucks are loaded with packages from front to back and floor to ceiling.

Established in April 1985, the company employs 62 and now has divisions in the United Kingdom and Australia. Best Diversified was founded to manufacture, market and sell portable, retractable ramps to help load and unload delivery trucks.

When a major parcel carrier requested the creation of a more robust, expandable conveyor for its operations, the company began to blossom into the enterprise it is today.

“We did that, and that’s when our company took off, in 1987,” Markley said. “We have never compromised the quality of our product. We are considered the finest in the world. Six times out of 10, you’re buying it from us.”