Manitoba man’s agricultural invention makes Time Magazine’s best of 2025 list

An agricultural invention made in Manitoba was named one of Time Magazine’s top inventions of the year.

Jeremy Matuszewski was looking for a way to make combining more efficient for farmers.

He was completely surprised when a product he created made Time Magazine’s list of the “Best Inventions of 2025”.

“We’re talking Time Magazine, that’s a pretty cool thing,” he said. “To be recognized as one of their top 300 inventions, alongside some like Earth-shattering inventions, is super cool.”

Matuszewski is the founder and CEO of Thunderstruck Ag in Winkler, Man., and what he created is a new kind of concave, which is a device used in every combine. It plays a vital role during harvest.

How it works

The concave, which sits under the rotor, helps to separate the chaff from the grain — essentially, the good from the bad. It has a series of openings that are sized according to the type of crop that is being harvested.

For example, a wheat concave is different from a concave used while harvesting corn.

This means a farmer must switch the concave every time they harvest a different crop, which takes time.

On top of that, although each combine is different for each company, like John Deere or Case, all concaves are designed the same.

“If every machine is operating differently, why is every concave designed the same, no matter what machine it goes in,” said Matuszewski. “I started wondering, ‘what if we change how the concave is designed to try and control how the material flows through?’”

Matuszewski asked a welder in Winkler to make some prototypes of differently designed concaves and got them tested on farms in Australia in 2023.

‘We were on to something’

Matuszewski got the new product, known as the Razor’s Edge Concaves, patented and did more testing across North America in 2024, making some tweaks in the process.

Once he was satisfied, he launched the product at the tail end of 2024 and the beginning of 2025.

“We’re seeing a significant difference in grain sample quality, a significant difference in fuel consumption and we are also seeing a pretty big difference in grain loss coming out of the back of the machine,” he said. “All of those things equal dollars in farmers’ pockets.”

The concave is designed to improve cleaning and separation, and most importantly, removed the need to change between crops.

Farmers have the option to slow their rotor speed, have wider concave gaps and are being sold on efficiency and lower fuel costs.

Matuszewski says they have sold products all around the world, including across North America, Australia, Europe, South Africa and most recently in Brazil.

‘It’s a good product’

The concave is also being used by farmers locally in Manitoba.

Jayme Janzen, who farms around 3,500 acres of crop near Winkler, says the new concave is a major time saver.

“The convenience is why we use it,” he said. “It’s the ability to switch between crops without having to pull cover plates or touch our concaves at all. Going from field to field has been very nice.”

Janzen farms corn, soybeans, wheat, and canola

When CTV News caught up with Janzen, he was combining his final field of crop for the harvest season. He first began testing the product in 2024, and said it’s made his last two harvest seasons very efficient.

“The convenience of being able to move from crop to crop will become the norm,” he said.

The recognition of the Razors Edge Concave from Time comes months after winning the Farmer’s Choice award and Innovation award at Canada’s Ag in Motion farm show, which was held in Langham, Sask. this past summer.

Matuszewski says he hopes his story can inspire the next generation of innovators.

“I didn’t think this would work, and it did work,” he said. “I would say, ‘don’t be afraid to put your ideas out there.’”