Today’s ag economy has changed the way United Prairie is partnering with its farmer customers. The focus is still keenly on return on investment, but CEO Curt Miller explains, there are key considerations for how United Prairie is showing up differently for their customers.
“Our major focus is return on investment for our customers,” he says. “In the past that return on investment has really been about yield and about increasing their bushels, but now more it’s about making sure the expense we are asking them to take on to increase those bushels does show a return on investment. As far as all these bushels we’ve helped them raise–make sure they get every penny out of them.”
Miller is the fourth generation in his family to be in ag retail. His family’s fertilizer business was acquired by United Prairie in 2019, and he became CEO in March of 2021.
“I’ve been a fertilizer buyer for 18 years—tracking the Chicago Board of Trade close of business every week, what that number is for corn, and then how many bushels it takes to buy a ton at the crop nutrient levels today,” he says. “But when you’re buying fertilizer, you need to sell grain to cover it. That’s the best hedge that you can use.”
The ag retailer spans 14 locations across east central Illinois. Their team out of Tolono, Ill., is the 2024 recipient of The Scoop Business Innovation Award, sponsored by Ever.Ag Agribusiness.
As they have digitized their business and their customer experience, the biggest ROI has been on efficiencies gained. Miller says that has been realized with their employees’ time, customers’ time and equipment.
“It’s trying to take all the pieces of the puzzle and put it together to where we can serve the grower efficiently. Give them the customer experience they want, give employees good work-life balance, and still be known for the return on investment piece,” he says. “It’s about giving the best service a retailer can offer, and not just from an application standpoint but also getting farther in to getting growers the information they need, the way they want it. And today that is electronically or digitally.”
As highlighted with receiving the Business Innovation Award, the team at United Prairie is motivated to try something new, and do things in a new way.
“We have to be honest right now the ag economy has challenges. And we need to accept the fact we’ve had several good years. History tells us we’ll have some that aren’t so good and are challenging. But with challenges come opportunities,” Miller says. “We just need to be able to take the pieces to the puzzle be more efficient.”
One way United Prairie is putting together those puzzle pieces is an all-in approach to its company culture.
“When our employee engagement survey come back, culture was one of the things one of the topics that the employees knew and enjoyed,” Miller says. “So we really took a deep dive. We know we have to adapt to change in the future. They see that, too. If return on investment for customers is there that’s something that they grab a hold of and take ownership of every day.”
