Bushel Announces Q42021 Updates

Once again, Bushel is providing our customers and friends with a recap of what has happened in the past quarter along with some sneak peeks of what’s next. This quarter, we kicked it off with the ABA – Ask Bushel Anything with CEO and co-founder Jake Joraanstad and President and co-founder Ryan Raguse to answer some of the questions they’ve been hearing. 

What does the acquisition of GrainBridge mean for Bushel Customers? 

There are three major areas that this will help not just Bushel but the industry as a whole. First, it’s about the GrainBridge team and the buildout of the Omaha headquarters. This specific skillset of data science will help us level up the offerings to help both grain buyers and growers have more information to improve grain marketing. Finally, this is an exciting opportunity to bring Cargill and ADM into the Bushel network. But this isn’t just about adding more customers to Bushel – this is about creating a network effect. A way to provide more tools to expedite processes around selling grain business-to-business.

How is Bushel safeguarding data, in light of recent ransomware attacks? 

When it comes to safeguarding data, there are two things to keep in mind: Privacy and Security. When it comes to privacy, Bushel continues to only share permissioned data and make sure our customers and growers understand what is being shared at what times. When it comes to security, Bushel continues to invest and focus efforts on staying ahead of the game. We’re not able to stop ransomware attacks especially knowing we’re supporting a critical supply chain, so we know we will continue to level up in both practices and technology. 

What changes are in store for Bushel heading into 2022?

The opportunity is there for Bushel to show how the grain industry can become paperless moving from the offer stage to how grain facilities pay their growers. We are also focused on leveling up our team with key hires in the product, strategy and sales strategies. Our products will be voicing on how to better support our customers’ agronomy part of their business through invoices and other added features. 

Next, we highlight two key product updates we think our customers will enjoy using to further connect and strengthen relationships with their growers. The first is a sneak peek of the Bushel Web portal. It’s a place for both your growers and your employees to log in and see the same information to keep you on the same page. Your growers can view cash bids at various locations, futures for what’s going on a global scale as well as personalized, permissioned-shared  information regarding scale tickets, contracts and commodity balances. The Bushel Web portal has a simple, intuitive design for easy access for your growers to get in, and get back to what they want to be doing. 

The next is the ability to create and manage field names to scale tickets in Bushel Mobile™. This feature allows you to simplify record keeping, enhance your yield and profitability analysis, and provide even easier crop insurance reporting at the end of the year.

This next section of the Q4 Update takes a look at sustainability. Bushel’s Director of Sustainability, Allison Nepheux, answers real questions asked by Bushel customers regarding sustainability. 

What is Bushel’s involvement in sustainability?

Bushel is taking a focused approach to this space and still focused on being the best digital partner for the future. How can we help our customers discover what opportunities out there, what data will it take and how will Bushel can make it easier.? We’re not looking to compete with what’s already on the market, but really to support our grain customers in unlocking what’s in the future. It might mean flipping on a switch to start helping enroll growers in new programs or finding new ways of what we are offering to our customers. 

Why did Bushel submit comments to the USDA?

 There’s this concept of Climate-Smart Agriculture that might be something like a new labeling, or identify preservation – regardless of where that program goes – there’s going to be a level of documentation, As a digital infrastructure in the grain industry we feel like we had a key voice to contribute in this conversation. We simply wanted to encourage thinking around technologies and tools around transparency and traceability, and opportunities

Our grain facilities are running programs similar to this and it’s not just one sized fits all. We’re honored to be in a place to help shape what the future looks like.

This quarter, we featured Bushel customer Kayla McMackin from Central Farmers Coop in South Dakota. She talked about how easy the Bushel app was to set up and how happy their growers are having critical information at their fingertips. Two of her favorite features are push notifications and ensign. CFC has seen a decrease in certified mail expenses and now sees many contracts signed within 12 hours. “Our farmers love it and that’s the main thing,” she said.

This quarter we had an opportunity to participate in speaker panels at Seed to Feed, Grand Farm events, Food’s Future, World Agri-Tech, and the Sustainable Ag Summit. This gave us a chance to really participate in the future topics hitting our grain customers – sustainability, data standardization and industry collaboration. Additionally, we have seen our team increase and learn how to grow and develop as a cohesive team. Recently we celebrated at our holiday party with an annual tradition – the Slackies. This is our chance to celebrate the most creative, funniest Slack and Zoom comments of the year. 

This fall we also raised more than $22,000 for the United Way through our dunk tank, silent auction and pledge drive. It’s just one of the ways that we give back here at Bushel and we are so fortunate to have organizations such as the United Way to support our local communities. We also started offering volunteer days for the team to take time to support organizations. Recently, our operations team spent time at Hope Blooms making floral bouquets delivered to assisted living communities.