When it comes to choosing a retail partner, growers need someone who will give it to them straight. One area where companies often come up short is by making generalizations about the effectiveness of their products, trying to apply “typical results” to a broad range of customers and not acknowledging that what works well on one farm may not work on another farm. Or what works in one section of…
The high velocity of today’s agriculture industry is requiring more processes and information to be digitized so it’s easier to store, share and track product information. One variable that causes frequent hiccups along the supply chain are the various coding and naming conventions that organizations adopt to identify products in their systems. This causes headaches when trying to backtrack because…
Farmers, like anyone else, are compelled to fix what’s broken; and they turn to experts who can help them navigate their biggest challenges. You may have the right programs and products to solve their problems; but yours aren’t the only ones on the market. You need to prove you have the best solution available, and highlighting the differences that will benefit them in your product/program vs.…
In the retail world, tighter margins at the farmgate mean tighter margins for you. It's more important than ever for retailers to be working in partnership with farmers to help them make smart decisions that protect their assets so you can minimize your own losses, protect capital, and run a prosperous business for the long haul. As an industry we most definitely need to be more efficient with resources,…
There’s a perfect storm of opportunity brewing in the ag retail environment. An uptick in consolidations at the retail and cooperative level is a sign of the changing times, with many businesses closing shop and exiting the market, and many others merging and acquiring new facilities—all to expand reach, save costs and/or make business more efficient. Are businesses taking full advantage of the…
Agriculture is an industry where having a favorable review from a neutral third party is of immeasurable value. Earning the support from independent local consultants could be the single most influential factor in making customers believe in you. Smithfield Foods LLC is one company that got it right.