You might say Thunderstruck Ag is having the “time” of its life. In November, a device the Winkler, Man.-based company designed and distributes was named to Time Magazine’s list of the Best Inventions of 2025.
The Razors Edge Concave is an alternative to a traditional concave system that attaches to a combine and helps to separate the chaff from the grain (i.e. the good from the bad) during harvest and helps the grain to flow to an adjacent holding tank.
The beauty of the Razors Edge is that it can accommodate any type of crop and doesn’t have to be changed or adjusted from crop to crop, unlike a traditional concave which must be swapped out or realigned by the user every time they harvest a different crop. Not only does that save the farmer time, it also helps maintain the crop’s kernel integrity and minimize any potential losses.
Founder and CEO Jeremy Matuszewski says he was floored to learn that his device had been recognized
by Time.
“It was like, ‘Are you kidding me?’ This is Time Magazine. This is one of the oldest and most revered
magazines in North America and people all around the world have heard of Time Magazine,” he says. “It’s pretty cool for little old Winkler, Manitoba and just Manitoba in general to get that kind of attention. Then you think about Canadian agriculture and how we’re such a global leader for farmers all around the world and it’s really cool. The interest has been just dramatic since (his company’s selection).”
So, how did the small, rural Manitoba-based company’s device end up on a list that included the likes of a humanoid robot capable of performing domestic chores, such as folding laundry or a Braille-style computer tablet for blind people?
Matuszewski isn’t exactly sure. His guess is that it had something to do with the Razors Edge winning both the Innovation and Farmers’ Choice awards at this year’s Ag In Motion in Saskatoon, one of the
country’s largest agricultural trade shows. Not long after, he was invited to take part in the Time contest.
That honour marked a milestone for Thunderstruck, the company Matuszewski founded in 2013.
Thunderstruck supports the marketing, sales, manufacturing and distribution of farmer-invented products from around the world, but the Razors Edge Concave is the first product the company developed on its own.
The concept emerged from the complaints Matuszewski heard repeatedly from his farmer clients about the concaves they were using on their combines.
“Honestly, it just came from spending a lot of time with farmers and hearing and seeing their problems and realizing that the way that they were trying to be solved wasn’t really solving the problem. We thought there had to be a different way to do it,” he said.
What makes Razors Edge different from other concaves is that it features a variable spacing bar
that matches natural crop flow and eliminates the need for mid-season hardware swaps. That allows
farmers to switch between wheat, soybeans or canola without having to change the concave or install any kind of cover plates or inserts.
Matuszewski developed the first prototype in 2023 in conjunction with Ironmen Industries, a steel fabricator based in Winkler. He ended up field testing it that winter in Australia.
“Harvest was done here and I felt like if this was not going to work, I wanted it to not work somewhere
that wasn’t my backyard,” he says, laughing.
Thankfully, it did work, and quite well, in fact. Following a few tweaks to the device, he tested it on 25 farms in Canada and the U.S. in 2024 and officially launched it that November. To date, the company has sold more than 400 Razors Edge units, which retail for $9,500 in Canada. Matuszewski expects that number to climb to more than 500 by year’s end and to rise to between 750 and 900 units in 2026. In addition to Canada and the U.S., his company has customers as far away as Australia, Brazil, Denmark and South Africa.
The Razors Edge concave system can accommodate any type of crop and doesn’t have to be changed or adjusted from crop to crop.
Matuszewski knew his company had a hit on its hands after talking with farmers about the device at
the numerous farm shows it attended this past year.
“The thing that told us we were on the right track is typically you go to a farm show and you talk to a
farmer about a product and they’re skeptical. They’ll look at a product and say ‘This will never work,’” he says with a laugh. “But with this product they looked at it and they’re like ‘Oh, that makes perfect sense. That’ll work.’ It’s just kind of spread from there.”
And that’s music to the ears of Matuszewski, a huge fan of the classic rock group AC/DC. In fact, it was
his love of the band that inspired his choice of names for his company and its latest invention.
“The name Thunderstruck came to me when I was on my way to coach a hockey game. The song came
on the radio and I was ‘Ah, Thunderstruck.’ I wanted something with some shock and awe,” he recalls.
“With the concave, we were brainstorming all kinds of names at the beginning. We called it Razors Edge as kind of a joke. It was the album Thunderstruck was on. Our edge ended up being a little sharper than we expected which was good. Then we were like, ah, Razors Edge it is.”
