Nathan Packer was recently named Senior Vice President of Retail Across North America for Nutrien Ag Solutions. In his first media interview, Packer talks about industry trends and how Nutrien is planning to grow its business.
Packer has a career history working for legacy companies in the Nutrien timeline including Crop Production Services. He says Nutrien is staying focused by remaining close to its customers and being ready to adopt technology to reliably serve their needs. Here’s a Q&A with Packer from an upcoming episode of The Scoop Podcast:
Margy Eckelkamp: You’ve had a unique seat to see how the Nutrien of today has come to be. So, from your point of view, when you think back 15 years ago to now, what’s the biggest difference in the ag retail industry?
Nathan Packer: “There’s so many. I’ve been fortunate to hold several different roles, and I would say that the biggest one is how quick decisions are being made today. When you look back 10, 15 years ago, there was a lot of research being done and decisions being made I wouldn’t say slow, but slower. Now everybody has everything at their fingertips. They’re making numerous decisions a lot quicker and that’s where we’ve invested in infrastructure with an emphasis on digital platforms, so we can keep up with this.
Margy Eckelkamp: Today, how is the team at Nutrien using AI to make those decisions faster or even better decisions for the business?
Nathan Packer: Currently, we’re using AI to make decisions from a customer support standpoint. Reliability is the most important thing for any customer out there. They need the products when the crop demands. And it’s our job to make sure we provide a reliable source. With AI, we’re looking at previous purchases and our agronomy team is looking at sampling and prescriptions being written, and we’re making sure we’re staying ahead of that for the customer. We’re using data from our system today to make sure that we’re providing the insight that the customer needs quicker.
From an agronomy standpoint, we have our Echelon platform. We’re looking and testing things with AI today that gives us the prescriptions, based on observations, whether that’s weather patterns or whether that’s soil data or yield data from that local area.
“What excites me most around AI is the ability it gives our crop consultants and our branches to service the customer. We can have more intel to them quicker.”
Margy Eckelkamp: A lot of folks are asking, what is AI going to disrupt? What is it going to displace? So, how do you think artificial intelligence could transform ag retail in the future.
Nathan Packer: I don’t look at it as a disruptor. I think it’s going to enable us to make decisions and do things better. I think as we get into it, there’s going to be disruptions that are made, but for me to sit here and tell you today what those are I don’t know. But, what excites me most around AI is the ability it gives our crop consultants and our branches to service the customer. We can have more intel to them quicker. We can help them plan and coordinate what they need to do in their operations and their farms. So I look at it as more as an enabler, more so than a disruptor.
Margy Eckelkamp: What would you share as far as your strategy to continue to be able to serve farmers as they expect, while maybe those expectations are being amplified?
Nathan Packer: It really comes down to reliability. And, we’re looking at how can we expand our retail footprint utilizing our broader company assets. We have the ability and the local relationships, which are the most important to service our customers. But we also have world-class capabilities that differentiate us in the industry. And this gives us the ability to look across broader scales and really hone in on the areas where the customer needs our service to make sure that we have the best assets as well as the best tools. I think innovation for us is a big one. With our Loveland Products brands, we’re looking at ways to bring innovation to the market, whether that’s around nutritionals, better efficiencies from crop nutrients, or,coming out and giving them the ability for water conditioners and replacements like our Reax Sulfur. That’s a big product for us. It’s putting our local relationships with the world-class capabilities that Nutrien brings across the board.
Margy Eckelkamp: What can you share today for how you guys are going to continue to grow your retail business?
Nathan Packer: I look at what our 5-year projection is the mission remains the same. It’s servicing our customer. How we do that is going to evolve with the times. I look at five things.
- Safety. Safety for us is the most important thing. And, if we can’t send our employees or customers home safe, that doesn’t help anybody.
- Keeping the customer as the center of focus. We’re looking at the needs of the customer and making sure that we’re delivering on those needs.
- Reliability. You look at all the constraints in the market today, whether that’s logistic constraints, labor constraints, all those things. And, we’re here to help our customers through those. At the end of the day, it comes down to reliability of product availability and service.
- Network. Going in the future, we’ll need to be able to provide product to our customer when they need it, in the most efficient way. And I think that’s going to get more and more important as we move through time.
- Bringing new solutions to our customers. For us, bringing new products from our DynaGrow brand is very, very important to us, along with Loveland Products. It’s continuing to bring innovation through that platform with biostimulants, nutritionals, crop protection, seed treatment and adjuvants.
Margy Eckelkamp: You’ve brought up kind of this bigger theme that really is pervasive across the sector of the industry, which is this digitization of the business. And I’m thinking back to when Nutrien first unveiled its customer portal, and it was The Scoop’s new product of the year, and you guys have continued to iterate on that product and deepen your relationship with customers that way. So, what do you think the future looks like there, specifically being able to augment the boots on the ground with the technology tools, while keeping that relationship, that reliability, all those things center.
Nathan Packer: It goes back to enabling our crop consultants. We have 2,600 throughout the U.S, and, it’s a lot of moving parts, but if we can help them with the data then our customers succeed. One of the ways we do that is we’re lucky enough to leverage Waypoint Analytics, and use their tissue sampling and soil sampling and analysis throughout the U.S. That gives us the ability to pull that data in and make quick, sound decisions, and provide that to our crop consultants.
In this business relationships are the most important thing, and it’s how we can empower our crop consultants to make their job, quicker and more efficient, and bring that value to the customer. We also utilize our Echelon platform, which gives us the intel from seeding rates to soil samples, as well as tissue samples, providing what the crop needs at that time in that area.
Then you look at the ease of doing business with us today. We’ve really focused on that from the customer standpoint, and the platform allows customers to go in and look at online statements, previous orders, and that’s only going to continue to grow. Look at your online banking today. It’s all online. That’s what we’re really trying to use the customer portal for making our customers have the ease of doing business a lot easier.
Margy Eckelkamp: When I talk to farmers and retailers here in the last couple of years. I know a lot of folks express how they’re leaning on each other, their partners in the industry, to deal with the volatility, which sometimes seems like extreme volatility. So, how could you share that Nutrien is positioning themselves to help farmers have a strong rest of the growing season. We’re at an interesting time, right? Retailers are thinking about the growing season right now, but they’re also going start forecasting for next year, doing the summer fills, all of that inventory for ‘27. So, how is Nutrien preparing itself to help farmers in the next 12 months.
Nathan Packer: There’s a lot of decisions being made now, for not only finishing this crop up, but also next year. One way Nutrien’s looking at this is we have a broad lens of what the world economy’s doing from an ag standpoint. We not only have the capabilities of looking at our wholesale and fertilizer imports and exports, but also what’s going on in the ag input space with our key suppliers and market research team. For Nutrien, we’re focused on reliability. We make sure that we have product in place for our customers every day. For us, it comes back to reliability and the partnerships that we have across the world.
Margy Eckelkamp: Well, Nathan, you were recently named as one of our 40 Under 40 awardees from The Scoop, so congratulations on that! What words would they share with someone else who may be in the early chapters of their career in ag retail?
Nathan Packer: One is stay curious. But also, stay close to the customer. That’s what has helped me through my career and got me to where I’m at today. It’s important to have insight and relationship with the customer, because in this business, it’s not only relationship-driven, but we must bring is our American farmers who feed and clothe the world.
