CropLife Retail Week: Winfield United Tour Highlights, Tech Hub LIVE Details, and Computer Glitch Discussion
July 26, 2024 Eric Sfiligoj and Lara Sowinski discuss the recent Winfield United tour in Wisconsin, plans for the next week’s Tech Hub LIVE, and the computer issues that disrupted air travel during the past week.
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*This is a partial and edited transcript:
Eric Sfiligoj: Hello. Welcome to another edition of CropLife Retail Week. I’m Eric Sfiligoj, Editor of CropLife and here again with Lara Sowinski. Lara, how are you doing?
Lara Sowinski: Really well, thank you. How are you?
ES: Well, good. But I’m actually in the office to record this video. But the the, previous days of this week, I’ve been on the road quite a bit. one of the trips I took, which I’m going to highlight in today’s video for our viewers, was I visited with my friends up in Winfield United. they have an innovation center, in River falls, Wisconsin, which is just a little bit east of Minneapolis.so I spent the day July 24th, the day up there on a tour of that facility, and also some of their answer plots, which were not too far away. And, well, had some good speakers talking about all the company plans moving forward. Laura, they’ve got a very aggressive plan in the marketplace. Winfield United hopes to introduce 80 new products over the next three years so that, you know, as companies go, that’s pretty aggressive.But, you know, and they had several there people talking at this event, but they also invited, an egg retailer. I was happy to see, Greg Culp, who’s with Mercer Landmark, which is one of the 100 companies on our listing that’s based in our home state, my home state of Ohio. And, Greg had a couple of video clips that, I would like to share with our viewers.
In the first one, he’s talking about a topic near and dear to your hearts. The question came up regarding biologicals and the views of retailers regarding biologicals. So here is what Greg Culp had to say regarding the biologicals marketplace.
Greg Culp: This, biologicals are what comes to mind now. There are other things that I think are important. but the biological space we talked about a little bit this morning that it is a bit of a wild, wild West and, we joked that, you know, you could make something in your bathtub and, and, call it Go-Go juice, and it’ll get four bushels or $10 or whatever, and and go on a promise.
And it has an ag retail. We don’t want to we don’t want to sell that. We want to sell on data. And that’s, that’s why I think that from an innovation standpoint and a research standpoint, what we’re looking at is done with the bio bio verified approach, gives us confidence as retailers and gives our growers confidence that when we apply a product, we we can at least count on consistent result. And that’s what growers want.
ES: So that’s what Greg Culp had to say about, biologicals. And again, he emphasized law is something we’ve heard from several folks over the years that without data to back up the claims that, you know, you can you can claim the moon, but if you don’t have the data to go with it, egg retailers in general don’t really want to have to deal with that.
They want some hard data before they’re willing to give stuff a try.
Yeah. So and in a second clip, kind of following up on that, he was also emphasizing the question came up regarding, you know, how the grower community in particular, they’re a little slow to adopt new new practices and new technologies. and he said a lot of that ties back to the data question as well. So here is what Greg had to say regarding that topic.
GC: Well, the retail sellers are not a lot different than farmers many times, and that’s that they’re maybe resistant to change at times because we like what’s always worked. And I if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it. Right. But that’s really not true. I mean, we need to be looking for the next the next best thing. And so in order to to get through some of those challenges, that’s where that that helps.
And whether that be local data really specifically the answer a lot that it helps us because we know that it’s it’s not just a field trial where we got some anecdotal response. It’s it’s got it with a local LSD. It’s it’s data we can trust. And if we have that, that begins the conversation to go, oh, maybe I need to be recommending this particular product in this specific situation, growers in my area, because we’ve had trouble with X, Y or Z or it’s we’ve talked about a lot of these local that every product isn’t for every grower, but having the education and the data behind it gives our sellers the confidence to know, which tool from the toolbox to pick for the specific problems. And we appreciate the data that comes from from the answer. Buy it from a technical team.
ES: So that is what Greg Kolb had to say from Mercer landmark regarding ag retailer views regarding biologicals and data. and how important data is to ag retailers and I, I tend to agree. I mean, I’ve, I’ve heard that some several retailers that you know, if you don’t have the data to back up your claims, then, basically, you know, these guys are too busy to try to vet stuff themselves.
Yeah. So hey, I like I said, this was a Winfield United event. and I don’t want to be neglectful of the Winfield United representation. So, Dennis Christie, who was a Winfield United rep, when we were out at the answer plot, question came up, regarding ag technology and here is what he had to say regarding ag technology and how it’s progressed over the last five years.
I think our viewers will find this very interesting. So take a listen to this as well.
DC: With Charles, some of us just, seeing sprayer optical sensing. There’s been more change in the last five years than there probably has been in the previous 50. That change, that innovation drives wealth, opportunity, risk and costs. Right? Costs a lot to get involved with some of these technologies at some point. We have struggles at retail and on the farm, right, with with personnel just finding enough bodies that they’re enough.
So these things are giving us some, some new opportunities. and we try to learn about.
So again, as he pointed out, you know, the technology advances we’ve seen in the last five years probably surpass easily what we’ve seen in the prior 50 in the marketplace. And, you know, given that old adage about how technology advances so quickly and, and moves ahead rapidly at a very, very quick pace from one month, one year to the next, one month to the next one week to the next, I imagine, you know, over the next couple of years, we’re going to be seeing a lot of this on this front.
So, hey, so, I’ve already set the table for technology, and I know that ourselves, you and me, along with a bunch of other people, are going to be in Des Moines, Iowa next week for our Tech Hub Live. So if you could give our viewers an update on that, to see what the latest is.
LS: Will do. And this weekend, a lot of our team obviously is heading to Des Moines for setup and prepping for Tech Hub Live, which kicks off on Monday the 29th. I am so thankful that the CrowdStrike, Microsoft security update glitch happened last week. And, and, this weekend, when everyone’s trying to get where they need to be for Tech Hub Live.
So I’m going to use the, security glitch update, security update glitch as a reminder about supply chain resiliency and risk mitigation. And I remember, what has now kind of become a case study in the supply chain management and risk management realm. If you recall, spring 2011, the Fukushima earthquake and tsunami in Japan. And, a lot of the auto manufacturers, not just the Japanese manufacturers, but Ford and Chrysler, for instance, were affected.
German company Merck, makes or was making at that time, in Fukushima a pigment for auto paint and pigment, paint pigment. And it’s called ceramic. And it kind of gives that shimmery, you know, feature to the paint. so that plant went down and consequently auto production came to a screeching halt, in large part because this one paint pigment for paint, it was not available.
So, you know, it’s kind of like, you know, all your eggs in one basket kind of thing and, you know, again, just this past week and even some folks that we were prepping panels for Tech Hub Live, they were saying, yeah, gosh, you know, we were down for a couple days here at the office and etc. and, you know, kind of the question that many executives were asking and posing was, how in the world can a security update glitch bring everything down from transportation to custom clearances to, commerce and so on and so forth?
And, you know, just a reminder. And one thing that really stands out for me is particularly when I was, you know, years ago, entirely immersed in supply chain. And, somebody that was doing a webinar on risk for us was, was talking about people do a great job, you know, when we go in and we work with them and analyze the supply chain and ask the questions, okay, who’s your supplier, supplier and so on and so forth.
And what would you do that? You know, playing the word, the word of game to really try and stress test, you know, what you have and you know, everything’s fine. They put it in a three ring binder and they put it on the shelf, and it doesn’t get looked at until something happens. And then desktop, the binder pulled out like, yeah, what do we do again?
What’s our contingency plan? And it’s like, no, no, no, it’s it’s a living, breathing thing. I mean, that that notebook and that planning and the asking, what if about every scenario you can imagine is what’s called for? and it always has been. And, well, some things, you know, the downing of the Key Bridge and port strikes and earthquakes and tsunamis and geopolitical things, you know, those are, you know, a lot of things happened out of our control, however, you know, just close to home and just thinking about the business.
For retailers and their farmer, folks. And, you know, what happens if you’re truckers not able to deliver? What happens if the forklift truck driver doesn’t show up? Small things, even small things can be dismissed. So just a gentle reminder to when it comes to risk, particularly in today’s world. And we ask the question, how could one thing bring that?
Oh, look, this is exactly how it can happen. And while there may not be a lot that folks could have done, to respond to the, you know, given the the nature of it, the question at least is if this happens, how much downtime will that impact and what will the cost be? Do I have a backup plan?
What do I do? If I do? I go back to, you know, the manual in the paper. So anyway, just a reminder, I’ll always be asking when you can’t sleep at night in your laying in bed and like. Like what do I do? I get like, stuck on. Well, what if this well, what if that? So yeah. Make good use of those, sleep sleepless nights.
ES: Always good for one’s blood pressure to be considered world views in the middle of the evening. Yes.
LS: Exactly. So again, I’m. I come through as being the Debbie Downer. But hopefully.
ES: But the bottom line, I’m sure, you know, things like this are all going to get discussed next week when we’re in Iowa, in Des Moines. So hopefully, you know, based on what I’m hearing, you know, it sounds like the attendance is going to be fairly strong. So we’re going to see a lot of our industry friends.
There will be a lot of great speakers. Obviously, you and I will be interviewing folks on the, out in the foyer, before you get to the show floor, talking with our fireside chats. But, yeah, I’m sure we’ll be talking a lot about topics like security and obviously technology and AI and drones and soil analysis. I know it’s going to be exciting, so hopefully you guys can join us again.
Next week’s video. Miss Laura and I will be recording it. Just post ag, tech club live, so we’ll be able to share what went on at the event. And, hopefully we’ll have a couple photos and maybe a video or two we can maybe see. But, you know, stay tuned in the coming weeks, obviously we’ll be talking about this for a little while, I’m sure.
LS: Yeah. So just I know we’re doing some, final days, outreach and, getting the numbers up. And honestly, the numbers for Tech Hub Live and Women in tech both have really, really popped in the last week or so. it’s still cheaper to register today than it is on this, but there. So, do check out tick up live.com.
ES: Very good. All right. Well, with that in mind then, since we’re all trying to get we’re trying to get a lot of stuff done before we leave, of course. And we’re it’s only as we’re recording this, we’re only a few days away from having to have all our laundry clean and all of our, all of our electronic equipment fully charged.
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