Customers
Trev delivers for early adopters
Trying to keep track of performance on 35 dairy units encompassing about 25,000 cows and dozens of staff is the stuff of Excel spreadsheet nightmares. Richard Townshend, director of farm supervisory company Dairy Direct can vouch for this firsthand.
Before getting on board with Trev as a business tool, the company’s supervisors worked off whiteboards and a series of spreadsheets tracking and benchmarking each farm’s operational performance.
“We started off with some key indicators that we needed to follow regularly, and ultimately these have been improved and incorporated into the Trev reports that we use today,” says Richard.
The key indicators Richard wanted to have ready access to for himself, colleagues and staff were stock reconciliation, production in kgMS per hectare, animal husbandry data, including death rates, and mating information on submissions and conceptions
Richard says being able to work closely with his brother Scott (Trev CEO) as an early adopter of Trev enabled Dairy Direct to be a good test bed for product development, trialling some of the tools that have now been incorporated into the class leading software.
He appreciates the ability to open up reports to staff members, and they appreciate the access when it comes to communicating with their banker.
“It means for those contract milkers who may have the bank querying their position, they can provide a report to the bank outlining their production and expected cashflow.”
“Depending upon the farmer-owner arrangement, we can send the reports to the respective managers and contract milkers. That information can also be shared between farms, and where we can we encourage the farms to share their information - it just depends upon the arrangement owners want.”
Trev has the ability to vary accessibility to the reports generated, matching the data needs of owners and teams.
Richard has found Trev’s key claim of taking no more than 10 minutes a week to input key data resonates well with those staff keen to keep their reports up to date, and the time estimation is a realistic one.
The Dairy Direct business provides hands on supervisory services for large dairy operators. Having Trev’s data open and available across all properties is critical for a service that steps beyond straight consultancy, with expectations on following up on recommendations, often reviewing staff actions within only a day or so.
Trev is proving an integral part of the business and will also be adopted when Dairy Direct expands to Southland, already having five farm businesses on board for the 2022-23 season.
Having Trev has meant Richard and his colleagues can offer a rapid results driven business, knowing the data on hand is the latest, processed in an easy to follow, shareable format that can be used to highlight the outcome of their recommendations and staff actions.
More about Dairy Direct:
Dairy Direct provide a personalised supervisory service for each farming operation where emphasis is on the development of efficient, profitable and sustainable production systems.
The Dairy Direct service comprises: development and/or implementation of your farming strategy in accordance with best practice NZ farming systems; implementation and management of compliance including Health & Safety, Effluent and Animal Welfare protocols; comprehensive monthly farm reporting and access to benchmarking across a range of farming systems; budget management and cashflow monitoring; as well as regular contact with your farm manager including people development and mentoring.