Postharvest survey review

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

• Majority of respondents believed our overall service delivery and operations had improved during the 2020/21 harvest compared to the harvest prior.
• Dynamic binning ratings have tracked consistently overall since it was introduced ahead of the 2018/19 harvest.
  • $3.8 million in value was delivered to growers who were able to access higher grades during the 2020/21 harvest. More than double the number of tonnes were upgraded this season compared to last.
• Opening hours and classification have recorded ratings showing continued improvement for the last three harvests. Feedback included “the flexibility of opening times was a great benefit.”
  • We have a strong focus on providing flexible opening hours and extending them when needed, which was particularly important this year given the seasonal conditions.
  • Continue our focus on training for classification employees and investment into our laboratory to ensure growers receive consistent and reliable testing.
• Feedback on segregations also improved this harvest.
  • We worked with growers to ensure we had segregations at sites across the network that matched what was being harvested. Over the last three harvests, we have seen a year on year improvement in the number of responses we have received in our planting survey. The more feedback we receive enables us to more closely match segregations to growers’ needs.
• Turnaround times and receival/elevation equipment were highlighted as areas for improvement.
  • We will have more discussions to further understand where we need to focus at an individual site level, and identify potential operational changes, process changes or potential investment we can put in place to improve.

Safety is our number one priority and we work hard to ensure the safety of everyone at our sites. In response to COVID-19, we put a number of measures in place to manage the health and wellbeing of our employees, growers, carriers, visitors and broader community. We also made changes to the delivery process for the 2020/21 harvest to align with government COVID-19 guidelines.

• Feedback on how we responded to COVID-19 and the measures we put in place was very positive.

“Fantastic that sites were still open whilst maintaining safety of staff, growers and carriers.”

“It really didn’t impact on any of the day to day delivery of grain. I thought Viterra did a good job with their guidelines and how they handled all the advice.”

“Viterra did a great job with COVID-19 and the changes were fairly insignificant to our business.”

“It all went very well, keep up the great work.”

“Everything was excellent.”

“I personally think Viterra did an excellent job considering the circumstances.”

“Changes had no effect on my experience, still easy to deal with and didn’t cause any hold ups during harvest. Simple yet effective.”

“Our responsibility was well communicated and it had no impact on silo site turnaround times which was great.”

“COVID-19 really didn’t impact any of the day to day delivery of grain, I thought Viterra did a good job with their guidelines and how they handled all the advice.”

• During harvest, there were a number of incidents involving trucks at our sites. We communicated directly to growers and liaised with industry to improve safety on site.
• We continued to focus on ensuring the safety of everyone at our sites and communicate the importance of safety and the procedures that must be followed onsite to keep people safe.

We have a strong focus on communicating to growers in a timely and efficient manner and continue to invest in our online platforms to give growers easy access to information.

• Results showed that the majority of respondents were satisfied or very satisfied with the communication they received about site information, general business updates and safety.
• Results showed that the majority of respondents were satisfied or very satisfied with our online platforms (website, Ezigrain and app) with a significant satisfaction improvement for the Viterra app.
• Feedback on the Viterra app included:
• “The Viterra app was a great improvement – easy to use and access personal delivery information and create transfers.”
• “Well done on the app. Grain selling made easy.”
• “Makes looking up daily cash prices a lot easier and quicker.”
• We released a summary of delivered tonnes in the Ezigrain section of the Viterra app which can be filtered by date range, commodity, variety, grade and paddock. The new feature followed feedback from growers and introducing it during harvest was very well received by growers.

We released our new warehouse to cash service ahead of the 2020/21 harvest to enable growers to instantly sell and transfer warehoused grain to a cash price. We had more than 20 buyers post prices to purchase grain, more than 3900 transfers and $106 million worth of grain sold.

• The new service received very positive ratings in the survey. The majority of growers rated the service as excellent or very good for its ease of use, making it easier to sell and transfer grain and adding value to growers’ businesses.
• The service also included the ability to sell grain to a sustainable cash price.
• Survey responses indicated there are a number of growers that were not aware of the new service.