Contracting Interview -- Aurora Cooperative
Todd Gerdes, Aurora Coop in Nebraska	Aurora Cooperative began enhancing customer relationships by offering value added marketing opportunities like specialty grain contracting programs and established a specialty grain marketing division in 1992. As Aurora expanded that part of their business, the challenge of effectively managing multiple contracting programs throughout a larger geography and grower base increased dramatically.

In the fall of 2000, Aurora began using the AgContract® information management tool to manage several of their large contracting programs. "When we decided to add five new locations in the Southern and Central regions, the hardest thing to do was to communicate with our expanding customer base about the contracting opportunities and then effectively manage the contracting process," says Todd Gerdes, specialty grains division manager with Aurora Cooperative. "We'd have six people talking with producers at the same time as someone else was talking with another producer. They'd come in saying, 'I just got 200 acres contracted,' and we'd say, 'We only had 40 left.' With AgContract we prevent these issues from occurring by tracking these activities in real-time and having that information ready for our people in the field." Aurora Cooperative based in Aurora, Nebraska has over 20 grain locations and has a combined storage capacity of over 35 million bushels of grain. ®,Trademark, E-Markets, Inc.

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