June 29, 2017

Customer Focus a key to Branch of the Year Award

The Elders Midland Branch, in Perth, Western Australia, has been awarded the 2017 Yara National Brand of the Year for their excellent team focus on servicing the needs of their customers.

Elders Area Manager, Brad Thompson, said the team were very pleased to win the award and appreciative of the recognition from a supplier.

He said the branch services a wide range of horticultural customers throughout southern W.A. with crops ranging from table and wine grapes, citrus, pome and stone fruit to olives.

"Our clients are faced with a number of challenges each season, including trying to produce more food on less land, so it is our job to find solutions and make them profitable," says Mr Thompson.

Mr Thompson said the relationship between the Elders Midland branch and Yara had been a collaboration that included providing input and fertiliser advice to their customers. This included a training program conducted by Yara International Agronomic Competence and Training Director, Barry Bull, with some of the best and most influential horticultural growers in Western Australia. Growers were able to gain an insight into the challenges and successes of similar producers from around the world.

Mr Thompson said horticulture was a highly specialised industry and Elders were keen to deliver quality products and services to the individual crops. "It is about providing the plant with exactly what it needs and Yara has been able to give advice to do that," Mr Thompson said.

"We have found that their products stand up to what we need them for and we feel assured that unwanted elements such as heavy metals are not there," he said, mentioning Elders were keen to support companies like Yara that have quality products at a good price and could deliver when needed through the season.

The Elders Midland branch includes Farm Supplies Manager Keith Daddow, Senior Agronomist Courtney Piesse, Farm Supplies Representative Bryan Burrell and a number of other employees who all contributed to the winning of the Branch of the Year Award.