Benefits beyond unit capacity.
Bringing a new product to market can be risky business. If we’ve learned anything during our time in business, it’s that research — and listening to customers — can strongly reduce those risks. That’s the story behind the Extndr, our new nine-inch extension ring for CenterFlow seed bins.
In recent years, the seed industry has continued to change. CenterFlow boxes typically held up to 50 units, but with advancement in genetics, treatments and unpredictable impacts of Mother Nature, we’ve seen companies being forced to limit their offerings to 35, 40 and 45 units per bin. Growers, retailers and producers helped educate us about the importance of maintaining consistency in their storage and delivery solution.
We realized it wasn’t practical to develop a completely new design. Since the market has been formed around the unique footprint of the current CenterFlow, we sought to create a solution that was reverse compatible to the millions of boxes shipped over the years and reside within of our customer’s fleets. As a result, we landed on an extension ring concept that is easily added or removed from any CenterFlow bin regardless of age. This spring was the market launch and we asked a few of our valued customers for feedback.
Seitec Genetics, based in Freemont, Neb., sells corn, soybean, sorghum and alfalfa seed to 15 states in the western and southern U.S. They’ve been using CenterFlow for 13 years, primarily for corn and soybean seeds.
“The first year for the Extndr was our 2020 planting season and we incorporated it into our packaging strategy,” said Dennis Bracht. “It allows us to manage large seed lots better because we can still fi t the target number of units into a box.”
He added that using the Extndr allows not only 17% more bin space, but it also allows for holding up to 500 more pounds as compared to not using it.
Rupp Seeds in Wauseon, Ohio sells a full line of seed, both row crop and vegetable. The family-owned company has been in operation since 1946 and is currently under third generation management. They primarily sell into the Ohio, Michigan and Indiana areas. They’ve been using CenterFlow for about nine years.
“We use them for retail shipment of wheat and soybeans, with an increasing usage for seed corn shipments,” said John King. “Additionally, we use them as short-term storage for some of our vegetable production.”
King said the primary reason they began using the Extndr was to continue to standardize the ‘50 unit’ box. Recently, the company has been seeing an increasing number of soybean seed lots that had a large enough seed size that would not allow 50 units in a box. They wanted to be much more consistent.
“We’ve found a number of benefits with the Extndr, most notably economic. We are able to stretch our existing inventory of boxes by 20% on those large seeded lots. However, other benefits include consistency of ordering, more accurate management of inventory in the warehouse, and less likelihood of human error during shipment and invoicing, all due to the uniform SKU,” he said.
When we launched the Extndr earlier this year, our primary goal was to provide customers with a consistent delivery solution to get up to 50 units or more per bin, even with larger seeds.
Similar to when we originally launched the CenterFlow years ago, there were bonus benefits as our customers are now telling us.
With the Extndr, users enjoy 17% enhanced capacity and vertical storage, along with a more efficient use of return logistics. Further, the Extndr provides additional variable sizing solutions, allowing for more customized packaging and the opportunity to reduce Bag returns. Combining those benefits with the current bin optimization and ability to create unit consistency offerings assures further value creation with Buckhorn’s CenterFlow and endless adaptability for our customers throughout the supply chain.
