Post harvest survey review

The majority of respondents believed the standard of our overall service delivery had improved and in recent years the percentage of growers who have seen an improvement in our service has continued to increase.

We are pleased to receive feedback from growers about the ways in which our services are providing value for their businesses. One respondent commented “we’re happy with the performance and outcomes of using Viterra services, in the role of performing our farming business”.

Where we received feedback specific to individual site operations, we will review these in more detail together with Strategic Site Committee Chairs.

Growers rated our classification, receival/elevation equipment, turnaround times, segregations and opening hours.

• Ratings for all services improved from last year.
• Classification and opening hours received the highest ratings.
  • Consistent classification between sites was a high priority. We continued to invest in training for our employees, with our laboratory overseeing the testing at sites to ensure reliability of results.
  • We worked closely with growers to match our opening hours to harvesting needs extending opening hours at larger sites.
• Respondents were very positive about the segregations we provided this harvest.
  • We used the results from our planting survey with feedback from our silo committees to ensure segregations matched growers’ needs.
• Turnaround times also received very positive feedback.
  • We focused on ways to improve turnaround times prior to harvest, including investing in 50,000 tonnes of extra storage at each of our Cummins, Roseworthy and Snowtown sites.
  • Prior to harvest we purchased new thermal printers, to replace our ticket printing machines, which are capable of printing dockets much faster and sped up our processes.
• Our receival/elevation equipment was highlighted as an area with opportunity for improvement.
  • In 2019, close to 90 maintenance projects were carried out across our network, the upgrade of our receival/elevation equipment was a priority.
  • We relocated receival/elevation equipment around our network to sites with the greatest demand.

This harvest, we introduced barley dynamic binning following positive grower feedback and the success of wheat dynamic binning in the 2018/19 harvest.

For the 2019/20 harvest, upgrades were available for wheat grades ASW1, APW1, H2 and H1, and barley BAR1 (F1) grade, and Malt1 grades for Planet, Scope, Spartacus and Compass.

Dynamic binning delivered approximately $4.7 million in value to growers who were able to access higher grades, including $2 million for barley upgrades which was offered for the first time this harvest. Of the deliveries in the tolerance zone, 97 per cent of barley and 90 per cent of wheat were upgraded.

• Our dynamic binning service was rated very highly by growers.
  • Comments included “dynamic binning had an attractive appeal” and was a factor when planning deliveries.

Safety is our number one priority and we worked hard to ensure everyone who visited our sites understood its importance and followed our safety procedures.

• Feedback about our safety initiatives was positive.
  • Growers were pleased with Viterra’s communication of safety information; comments included “you address safety well” and “you were very good with safety”.
• There was some valuable feedback provided regarding our safety initiatives.
• Growers offered recommendations on preventing uncontrolled truck movements during harvest.
  • Recommendations included ways to remind drivers to use their park brakes while in their vehicle.

• Growers gave very positive feedback about our communication of harvest related information and its frequency. Comments included “the flow of communication this year has been better than ever. Well done”.

We released our new Viterra app for the 2019/20 harvest to make it easier for growers to access site information to plan deliveries and transact in Ezigrain.

• Around 75 per cent of respondents said they used our new app.
  • The majority said they were either very satisfied or satisfied with its features. One grower commented “the new Viterra app is excellent and was used nonstop during harvest. We’re very happy with it.”
• There was feedback received on the app regarding an error that lost users’ saved sites and Ezigrain login details at the start of harvest.