Farmers Business Network is expanding its footprint in Western Canada.
The online crop input retailer has begun construction on a 198,000 sq. foot fulfilment facility in Saskatoon. Construction is scheduled to be completed in November 2022.
“It’s the biggest facility in our network and I believe it’s the biggest in Canada,” said Breen Neeser, FBN’s country manager for Canada.
The company also operates distribution centres in Langley, B.C., Aldersyde, Alta., Edmonton, Grimshaw, Alta., Regina, Saskatoon, Yorkton, Sask., Winnipeg, and London, Ont.
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The new facility, which will replace two existing Saskatoon warehouses, enhances the company’s hub-and-spoke system where large centrally located facilities can quickly resupply outlying distribution centres when they run out of product.
It means farmers can rely on getting product deliveries even in a year like this one when supply chain disruptions have caused regional shortages of product, he said.
The company’s logistics network uses data analytics to spot potential shortages and move inventory quickly to maintain adequate supplies. The new Saskatoon warehouse will assist in that process.
“It allows us to stock more to start the year and resupply as the season goes on at a really efficient and fast pace,” said Neeser.
FBN claims to have 6,000 Canadian farmer members operating 20 million acres of cropland. Membership in the organization is free.
The company operates fulfillment centres within 400 kilometres of more than 90 percent of its members.
Most of the crop inputs the company sells are herbicides, fungicides and insecticides. It also stocks a good supply of biologicals and nutritionals and some small-scale fertility products.
The company had difficulty accessing crop inputs when it first entered the Canadian market because traditional manufacturers were reluctant to sell product to FBN.
FBN decided to bypass those firms and is now accessing product directly from Chinese manufacturers.
“We have been able to get our hands on product reasonably successfully,” said Neeser.
The company also made its first foray into the seed business with the October 2020 purchase of Cibus’s Canadian breeding program.
“We are dipping our toe into the seed business in Canada,” he said.
“Right now, we are in that business in a small way and want to grow that in the future.”
FBN supplies some retailers with crop inputs but its “bread and butter” is the direct-to-farmer business model.
Farmers place their order using the company’s online platform, an automated system figures out which distribution centre should supply the product and then it is typically transported to the farm through FBN’s fleet of trucks or by third party carriers.
“For the most part our deliveries can be made within the next day or at the most two days after the order queues up,” said Neeser.
