River Valley Cooperative’s focus is on why the business exists and where it’s headed: delivering real, lasting value. Serving its growers while also thinking about how to remain a high-value partner led it to be named the 2025 ARA Retailer of the Year, sponsored by Bayer and supported by The Scoop.
Founded in 1906, River Valley has 39 locations in eastern Iowa and western Illinois and is owned by 3,300 farm families. Annual sales total $1.1 billion.
With a philosophy of “on the ground year-round,” CEO Tim Burress says the 400 full-time and up to 100 seasonal employees give customers a competitive advantage.
“It’s a highly competitive trade area with a lot of ag retailers for customers to choose from. But with our four distinct business units, we can service every part of their needs from an agronomy, grain, feed and energy perspective,” Burress says.
With investments in infrastructure and technology, River Valley’s mission is to ensure the success of customers, employees and communities. That manifests when growers increase yield, employees are empowered with meaningful careers and communities are fueled.
“We always say on the farm we are after three things: dependable products and services, competitive prices and trusted expertise,” says Neal Keppy, a farmer in Scott County, Iowa, and a River Valley board member.
GIVE A YIELD ADVANTAGE
“During the tough times we’re going through currently and could see for the next couple of years, growers are looking for a true partner, a partner that cares about them at the farm gate, provides solutions that are economical but yet agronomical,” says Aaron Trenkamp, agronomy account manager. “The partners that get the growers through this time will be the partners they trust in the future when the times get good again.”
Co-op leaders say their goal is to lead in agriculture by staying rooted in strong relationships, drawing on expertise, and being ready to meet future challenges.
“A lot of times in ag retail, you’ll see it’s more of a seasonal approach. But with all four of our business units, we have the opportunity to work with customers year-round because there’s always something going on in their business they should be focusing on, should be thinking about and bringing in the expertise of River Valley to provide it,” says Craig Patty, vice president of sales and marketing.
Leaders say this has created a flywheel effect with continuous touch points. Getting in front of the customer, staying in front of the customer and continuing to earn business through service.
Through direct ship or receiving it from farmers’ fields or bins and delivering it to its elevators or directly to the end user, the co-op markets 165 million bushels of grain. The grain unit’s growth has added opportunities for the business.
“We’ve expanded pretty rapidly into the Illinois trade area over the last few years with grain elevator acquisitions, which opens up new trade areas in terms of agronomy, energy, and feed businesses,” Burress says. “With that, we’ve invested in agronomy assets in those areas to fulfill the whole-acre approach to the business.”
Investing in capacity and updating infrastructure to reflect changing needs is on full display in River Valley’s strategy.
“We can move almost 2 million bushels of grain a week out of our locations if we need to,” says Ryan Kerber, grain operations manager. “Today’s farming operations just keep getting faster and faster and faster. We have to move trucks in and out as quickly as possible to keep these farmers moving.”
With the increased momentum of the business, River Valley has committed its team to two initiatives: exploring technology and increasing communication with member-owners.
Kale Petersen, regional manager for grain origination, says technology has been pivotal to helping farmers manage grain market risk.
“We’re managing risk 24/7 with our member-owners,” he says. “Markets are very volatile. Margins are tight, so we want to make sure they have those platforms available and that conducting business is easy.”
One example is the company’s customer portal, launched just a few years ago and now has nearly 5,000 users. The tool is another reinforcement of River Valley’s promise to be with customers year-round and how each department can work together.
“We use the customer portal to place orders, leave notes for customer accounts, figure out what they bought last year and identify opportunities,” says Leah Cook, agronomy account manager. “On the customer side, they can send messages, request quotes, view invoices and statements, sign contracts and more.
“Our best ability is availability,” says Buck Medley, regional agronomy manager, Iowa. “So, we must have tools in place to respond to our growers as quickly as possible.”
Matt Van Sloten, decision ag lead, says the technology provides the co-op’s team with tools to be at the farm gate, in the tractor or in the combine to give farmers the best customer experience throughout the season.
He adds the focus on customer accounts keeps them engaged at every step of the decision-making process. On average, the River Valley team encourages growers to consider at least two new offerings or technologies each year.
“Looking at the entire year and building that whole acre, it’s an every month, every day process,” Van Sloten says. “We look through the data. We use historical data to help build trend lines. It’s using all those layers of information and using it together.”
Data is also helping inform customer-facing strategies, including customer segmentation, analysis of purchasing situations, assessment of direct and indirect competition, and environmental analysis.
PROFESSIONAL GROWTH
River Valley has a stated vision to be the premier ag employer for all employees.
“Employees are huge for us,” Burress says. “I believe we have the best-in-class employees, which is a differentiator in the market. We conduct periodic engagement surveys, and River Valley achieved 85% in engagement. That’s critical because it’s all about the relationship with the farmer and the customer. Relationships matter in this industry.”
Two years ago, River Valley also launched a scholarship program for children and grandchildren of member-owners and employees.
PHYSICAL FOOTPRINT
River Valley has evaluated locations while looking for efficiencies.
“We’ve been on a journey at River Valley going to more of a centralized hub system,” says Culley Medley, the co-op’s vice president of operations.
Each location is assessed for how capital can be invested in year-round hubs. The Geneseo, Ill., site is an example of centralizing the storage of phosphate and potash volumes while also providing river and rail inbound options.
By doing more with fewer locations, it deployed central dispatching, increasing efficiency.
Bridgett Wildermuth, regional logistics manager, shares an example of how the co-op is a transportation company before any other business unit: “Last spring, there was an issue getting anhydrous up the river because a lock was out in St. Louis. There wasn’t any product in Albany, Ill., but owning our own fleet allowed us to pick it up at different locations, giving us a competitive advantage. When other companies were without product, our drivers went to different locations to get product to make sure customers’ needs were met, and we ended up having a record year.”
IN-SEASON, EVERY SEASON
On being named the Retailer of the Year, leaders say their success is due to the relationship they’ve built with successful farmers.
“It’s taking the holistic approach, that whole-acre approach, that is really important because we can help farmers in all facets of their business,” Patty says. “It starts with planting the right seed. It goes into the agronomic opportunities we have to make sure we maximize yield. And then it goes into selling that crop better than our competitors can. We help them do that. So, we feel like we have all facets of the business. We can help them be very successful in that.”
River Valley aims to pave the way for greater growth.
“We’re continuing to grow and utilize our whole-acre approach to satisfy customers’ needs,” Burress says. “They are ever-changing as farmers continue to evolve and grow; thus, River Valley needs to continue to do that also.”
Safety Initiatives Are Contagious
Two years ago, River Valley Cooperative enrolled in the ResponsibleAg program. Today, 24 full-time facilities and seven satellite facilities are registered. Two locations are fully certified.
“We did it to raise the bar on safety and to take us up to the next level for employee safety, along with customer and community safety,” says Lon Warnecke, safety director at River Valley. Warnecke says now he’s got locations proactively asking to get involved in the ResponsibleAg program.
The goal is to have all locations certified in the next three years.
“We take safety very seriously. I know everybody says safety first, but I really believe that River Valley goes beyond industry standards. We do a lot of hands-on, face-to-face, and small toolbox training at the locations. We also do a lot of online training with both new and current employees,” Warnecke says.
Since July 2020, the co-op has partnered with Safety Made Simple to bring a fresh perspective and enhance safety training efforts.
Additionally, River Valley provides annual financial
support to local fire departments for the purchase of new vehicles, equipment and facility upgrades. The co-op
offers annual training on proper grain bin rescue techniques using cofferdams donated by River Valley Cooperative. Currently, 20 employees and one board member volunteer with area fire departments and EMS services.
New Growth Within
To grow business, this past year, River Valley Cooperative launched its own private-label crop inputs, YieldVance. This includes adjuvants (AdjuVance) and liquid and dry fertility products (GrowVance).
“One of the goals from the beginning was to be able to establish a brand that our customers and our employees would be proud of. After year one, we certainly can attest that it happened,” says Dustin Hoeft, agronomy business manager. “It’s just great to see the adoption that we had out of the gate with the products that we offer.”
Agronomic performance has been enhanced by the YieldVance lineup of premium adjuvants, which make chemicals more efficient, improve plant uptake and provide better weed control. GrowVance provides key nutrients at different stages with starter fertilizers and foliar feed products.
“River Valley’s private-label products are our stamp on the market. It’s ownership from the sales team, and its ownership to the members that this is their co-op, their products,” says Buck
Medley, regional agronomy manager, Iowa. “These products provide strong agronomic solutions to help them get that optimum maximum yield that they’re looking for.”
Transformative Technology
“Technology pushed us so we can get more defined,” says Matt Van Sloten, decision ag lead.
What starts with grid soil testing as a baseline expands into prescription fertility and seed rates and troubleshooting problem areas in the field with precision. A new tool is NutriScan, which is used in-season for tissue sampling with a short turnaround time of about three minutes to get a result.
In the past three years, River Valley Cooperative made substantial investments in the precision of its application services. It set a goal for RTK boundaries of all custom application fields — more than 160,000 acres. Alongside that, it has been upgrading application equipment. Today, it has 30 John Deere ExactApply-equipped machines and 11 John Deere See & Spray machines. Already, benefits include reducing the amount of product applied and the time spent in fields by equipment and employees. The next step is to ExactApply or See & Spray all its acres.
