# New Customer!



## dbergh (Jun 3, 2010)

Wife and I had a meeting with the Corporate Purchasing Director of a 12 store chain of farm stores yesterday and we agreed on a commitment to supply our local store with Alfalfa and Grass /Alfalfa hay going forward. Depending on how things go with some of their other suppliers we may get quite a bit more additional volume in the future assuming both sides are comfortable with the situation. Quite exciting for us since our original intent when we started this project 6 years ago with 7 acres was only to feed a few cows! Never dreamed it would morph into this but it has been an incredible ride so far and keeps getting better!







Should give us the additional volume and cash flow to start putting in some covered storage and add some newer and better equipment that I have wanted and needed for the past couple of years but couldn't quite justify.


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## swmnhay (Jun 13, 2008)

*Congrats!!Always nice to have a big steady customer.*


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## askinner (Nov 15, 2010)

Congratulations! There's no better feeling, I had an enquiry from a dairy a few weeks back, to supply dairy quality alfalfa rounds. I sent the first truck load last week, and they called me a couple of days back to say it was the best hay they've ever fed, and their cows loved it. They have now committed to take whatever I can produce.


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## Tim/South (Dec 12, 2011)

It is a good feeling when buyers see your product as well enough to sell themselves and know it will represent them well.

Congratulations.


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## JD3430 (Jan 1, 2012)

Good for you. I can tell by your helpful personality why they would give that to you. You earned it !


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## Teslan (Aug 20, 2011)

In this commitment do you have to agree on the quality of hay? What happens if you can't supply enough quality hay? (say your hay gets to much prewashing rain and turns black) Do you have to go out and buy hay then to meet your commitment? I ask because I've often wondered about these kind of agreements. I wouldn't want to be stuck having to go out and buy hay if I couldn't deliver enough or the quality of hay required. Well done on getting what might be a great customer.


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## dbergh (Jun 3, 2010)

Teslan, the only real stipulation is no moldy hay. Even if that happens they discount those bales and market to cow folks and I will have to adjust my billing to them accordingly. They recognize that weather plays a role in what we do and will work with us to a certain extent on prewashing although I suspect if we cant supply high quality consistently they may start to look elsewhere. If I am having trouble short term with quality then most other producers are dealing with the same weather issues so finding nice hay at that point is going to be difficult to do locally.
Fortunately we are blessed with a climate that allows us to put up nice high fairly consistently and we also try to limit our weather exposure by limiting the amount of hay on the ground at any one time. First cutting can be a bit of a challenge with regard to weather but the rest of the season is usually pretty cooperative.


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## Teslan (Aug 20, 2011)

dbergh said:


> Teslan, the only real stipulation is no moldy hay. Even if that happens they discount those bales and market to cow folks and I will have to adjust my billing to them accordingly. They recognize that weather plays a role in what we do and will work with us to a certain extent on prewashing although I suspect if we cant supply high quality consistently they may start to look elsewhere. If I am having trouble short term with quality then most other producers are dealing with the same weather issues so finding nice hay at that point is going to be difficult to do locally.
> Fortunately we are blessed with a climate that allows us to put up nice high fairly consistently and we also try to limit our weather exposure by limiting the amount of hay on the ground at any one time. First cutting can be a bit of a challenge with regard to weather but the rest of the season is usually pretty cooperative.


~Your climate is much like mine I'm sure. Moldy hay is certainly understandable as a stipulation. I've just often wondered with large customer deals is if you can't supply a certain amount if they expect you to find it somewhere. I guess those kinds of deals are good as long as the customer understands farming and how hay is made.

I had one lady that would buy 2500 bales a year that I guess thought I ordered the hay from a factory somewhere to sell to her no matter what I would tell her about farming. Luckily last year when we didn't have enough for any of our customers she called up and asked if I could sell her Timothy hay (her not understanding that I can't grow Timothy here, nevermind I can't just change a orchard/brome field in one year to another hay on a whim.) So I lost her as a somewhat difficult customer and gained other more reasonable customers.


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