TFF Group buys ?

Clive

Staff Member
Arable Farmer
Location
Lichfield
It would be nice to have someone else to find the best possible price as it gets boring if you are buying a lot of one product and you cant trust your supplier to give you the best fairest price as i found out with Fuel today , fuel cards being another con . Who can be bothered to check their weekly price that is ofen higher than pump price
I will be buying more from out machinery ring buying group who i trust to do the work for me
@Clive , did you not have a fuel price tracker on here ?

We have a fuel tracker thread yes along with various other price tracker threads - they are handy but not really all that useful

Farm Compare will hopefully be ready by spring which will act as a price comparison site which is next step on form such price tracker threads really
 

kiwi pom

Member
Location
canterbury NZ
I don't take it personally - I think it just farmers in general really not being good at change or working together or understanding how they can use cooperation to change their fortunes, they are always looking for the "catch" !

Ultimately that's the big hurdle here and not really any of the other solvable issues raised so far

Farmers don't work together for lots of reasons. They are all independent business people with their own way of thinking. I'm guessing ego, not following the crowd and not wanting to be 'just a number' are big factors (it's certainly a reason behind the increase of dairy processors here)
Plenty of farmers on here will tell you a buying group saves them money but i think you said you're not in one? Seems strange.
I'm not saying your idea wont work but people are rightly cautious of it.
Who's making money out of them etc.

A quick Google suggests FBN have about 8000 farmer members and 350 employees, that's one employee for every 23 farmer members.
Nothing wrong with that and it seems to be saving farmers a lot of money BUT you have to be honest about the fact that others are making money out of it too. Perhaps it wont be long before someone decides their model is bloated and they can get a better deal elsewhere?
Hardly the one person in an office making a few online clicks now and again.
 

Clive

Staff Member
Arable Farmer
Location
Lichfield
Farmers don't work together for lots of reasons. They are all independent business people with their own way of thinking. I'm guessing ego, not following the crowd and not wanting to be 'just a number' are big factors (it's certainly a reason behind the increase of dairy processors here)
Plenty of farmers on here will tell you a buying group saves them money but i think you said you're not in one? Seems strange.
I'm not saying your idea wont work but people are rightly cautious of it.
Who's making money out of them etc.

A quick Google suggests FBN have about 8000 farmer members and 350 employees, that's one employee for every 23 farmer members.
Nothing wrong with that and it seems to be saving farmers a lot of money BUT you have to be honest about the fact that others are making money out of it too. Perhaps it wont be long before someone decides their model is bloated and they can get a better deal elsewhere?
Hardly the one person in an office making a few online clicks now and again.


I think the buying is just one part of what FBN does and a lot of their overhead and staff is in that, they are a big collaborative data project primarily I think

I'm not in a buying group because they don't save anything vs simply shopping about independently, the chemical they source still comes via the same distributor route mostly, I don't like the commitment of membership fees and can't see the point when with just a bit of effort I can get the same prices usually

I can see the convenience for some though
 

Farmer_Joe

Member
Livestock Farmer
Location
The North
We have a fuel tracker thread yes along with various other price tracker threads - they are handy but not really all that useful

Farm Compare will hopefully be ready by spring which will act as a price comparison site which is next step on form such price tracker threads really
to be fair i often check fuel price tracker and scrap price before ordering or taking some in, where else can you get that info from i find it pretty useful
 

kiwi pom

Member
Location
canterbury NZ
I think the buying is just one part of what FBN does and a lot of their overhead and staff is in that, they are a big collaborative data project primarily I think

I'm not in a buying group because they don't save anything vs simply shopping about independently, the chemical they source still comes via the same distributor route mostly, I don't like the commitment of membership fees and can't see the point when with just a bit of effort I can get the same prices usually

I can see the convenience for some though

FBN does seem to do more than just supplying inputs. I do wonder, as it grows will the initial benefits be lost?
If you think the idea will work go for it, you'll never have 100% agreement (especially on here) and they'll always be those that think they can do better, that's why not everyone is in a buying group now. If its a success more people will join.
I'm not convinced the storage and distribution side is as easy as you think though, if dealing direct, especially to get reliable service. A lot of farms aren't exactly quick and easy to access. I can see a lot of problems that will need actual people answering phones to overcome.
 

Clive

Staff Member
Arable Farmer
Location
Lichfield
to be fair i often check fuel price tracker and scrap price before ordering or taking some in, where else can you get that info from i find it pretty useful

they are better than nothing but if users shared more detail re who they bought or sold to at that price it would be REALLY useful and powerful for others

farmers are too frightened to do that though under threat of being blackballed by suppliers or not being offered their “special price” next time

divide and conquer! We need to revere that and unite
 

marcot

Member
Arable Farmer
Location
Bury St Edmunds
I think the buying is just one part of what FBN does and a lot of their overhead and staff is in that, they are a big collaborative data project primarily I think

I'm not in a buying group because they don't save anything vs simply shopping about independently, the chemical they source still comes via the same distributor route mostly, I don't like the commitment of membership fees and can't see the point when with just a bit of effort I can get the same prices usually

I can see the convenience for some though
I think you will find that FBN have a membership fee ....
 

Brisel

Member
Arable Farmer
Location
Midlands
I suppose too many TFF members would be machinery brand loyal to allow TFF to try and set up buying scheme for Case tractors,as I believe Velcourt do.

Velcourt advise on and manage directly 90,000 ha. That needs a lot of machinery so they have a deal with CNH, bypassing the dealer network who just do the supply, servicing etc. That gives them a serious point of difference for bargaining compared to the individual farmer who is only looking at one or two machines each year.
 

teslacoils

Member
Arable Farmer
Location
Lincolnshire
I'd be very surprised if the distributors pay for the product up front from the manufacturers!

I would not be at all surprised if they have payment terms similar to that of Tesco - 4 payment dates, one each quarter in arrears.

They are established. This is not.
Velcourt advise on and manage directly 90,000 ha. That needs a lot of machinery so they have a deal with CNH, bypassing the dealer network who just do the supply, servicing etc. That gives them a serious point of difference for bargaining compared to the individual farmer who is only looking at one or two machines each year.

Do they buy their ag chem direct from the manufacturer? If not, why not?
 

Brisel

Member
Arable Farmer
Location
Midlands
Do they buy their ag chem direct from the manufacturer? If not, why not?

They have a supply agreement with Hutchinsons for chems. I don't know about fertiliser but guess that's pretty centralised. Marketing is via Openfield & they have their own desks there.

We've got at least one Velcourt manager in here but I can't remember usernames.
 

teslacoils

Member
Arable Farmer
Location
Lincolnshire
If you get so large, you can have arrangement with companies simply to give them volume to get better margins for the rest of the business. Like buying direct but without the hassle of setting it up.
 
If we set something up that leveraged the power of forum group buying to achieve better prices how many of you would use it?

Not a traditional buying group as such in that you would neither have to pay to join or commit to buy exclusively from it but more the offer of products at a price which at certain volume thresholds got cheaper and cheaper

I would have to give the detail a lot more thought but its an idea I've had in the back of my head for some time, if there is enough interest we could look at developing the idea further

I'm thinking ag chem and maybe fertilizers could be a simple place to start but, in theory, could be extended to anything, fuel, utilities, and even farm machinery ? could something like this work and help us all achieve lower input prices?

Biggest issue will be delivery costs due to post code variation so whatever it’ll be product wise it’ll have to be + delivery.
 

Clive

Staff Member
Arable Farmer
Location
Lichfield
Biggest issue will be delivery costs due to post code variation so whatever it’ll be product wise it’ll have to be + delivery.


That's not an issue at all these days - stuff like that is bread and butter every day on FMP . It took us a while to learn the mechanics of all this but honestly stuff like thisn is no big deal now


The issue here is the good old chicken and egg scenario - to get the prices we need the volume and to get the volume you need the prices !

If enough went for it it could be game-changing but if not it will be no better than any existing buying group so really a bit pointless
 
Last edited:

Cloppy

New Member
BASE UK Member
Clive I will never understand your fascination with ag-chem. I really can't. The reason the bulk of it is is distributor led is because they are the ones that pre-order the material months before it is even manufactured and because they are prepared to sell, store and then collect the monies for it- none of which can be done for nothing.

If you want to have that kind of grasp of the marketplace then you will have to similarly commit to forecasting and ordering X thousand cans of something near 12 months ahead of schedule possibly and then getting it moved and collect the money for it.

If you ask me it would be far far simpler to collect up a few hundred farmers and gather together a few thousand tonnes/loads of fertiliser which of course is what the manufacturers of the stuff already do.
The margins the distributors are making out of agchem is huge maybe we could buy it from the manufacturers and cut the distributors out, saving us loads on our Agchem bill ? Makes sense to me
 

SFI - What % were you taking out of production?

  • 0 %

    Votes: 79 42.5%
  • Up to 25%

    Votes: 65 34.9%
  • 25-50%

    Votes: 30 16.1%
  • 50-75%

    Votes: 3 1.6%
  • 75-100%

    Votes: 3 1.6%
  • 100% I’ve had enough of farming!

    Votes: 6 3.2%

Red Tractor drops launch of green farming scheme amid anger from farmers

  • 1,287
  • 1
As reported in Independent


quote: “Red Tractor has confirmed it is dropping plans to launch its green farming assurance standard in April“

read the TFF thread here: https://thefarmingforum.co.uk/index.php?threads/gfc-was-to-go-ahead-now-not-going-ahead.405234/
Top