Working Hard to Better Serve You

May 12, 2017

Written By Mark Fenner

As a farmer-owned cooperative, we strive to make sure everything we do at MFA Oil is in service of the membership and meets your energy needs. On a day-to-day basis, this consists of negotiating with vendors to get the best combination of pricing and quality, watching world energy markets, conducting employee training sessions, and much more.

We are immersed in the energy business on a 24/7 basis for the purpose of constantly improving our fuels, propane and lubricants businesses. Why? Well, first of all, it’s our job to do so, but more importantly, we take our responsibility to you, our farmer-owners, seriously. That means doing things the right way and consistently meeting your expectations.

Recently, we have been examining the ways we can help you better focus on what matters most to you: making a living while raising the highest quality grain and/or livestock you possibly can. We hope doing business with MFA Oil will be so easy you can practically “forget” about managing your energy needs.

You may think to yourself, “Oh sure, they want us to forget about the energy business so they can overcharge us for our fuel, lubes and propane.” Nothing could be further from the truth. We are committed to being a competitive supplier. It’s the primary reason this company was founded so many years ago and, frankly, it’s in our DNA.

Although MFA Oil can’t help you increase your yield or keep your livestock healthy, we can be a benefit to you in other ways. Our goal is to develop services so convenient and effortless you can spend more of your time on the areas of your operation that truly demand your attention.

For instance, we could watch your fuel inventories with tank monitors. Doing so could help us plan our deliveries without requiring you to call us every time you need product. We can also structure your invoicing in a manner that best fits your needs (e.g., online bill pay, autopay, etc.). These are the types of things we can do to allow you to almost “forget” about your energy needs.

Improving your bottom line is another way we can help. The energy costs to take crops and/or livestock to market on average represents 10 percent or less of farmers’ overall input costs. We recognize that every dollar matters, so we are committed to doing our part to help you improve your farm’s profitability. We are testing a pilot program designed to reward customers for allowing us to keep them on a scheduled delivery route. Benefits of such a program include:

• Customers will receive a discounted price for agreeing to receive scheduled deliveries. These discounts will be consistent and substantial.
• Our drivers appreciate making less frequent, larger deliveries. Reducing the number of deliveries they have to make improves their safety.
• Scheduling deliveries allows us to be more efficient with our fleet. Improving our efficiency means we spend less on operations, which ultimately translates into more money going back to the membership.

It’s a truly win-win scenario. Does this mean we won’t do “Will Call” deliveries? Of course not. We are still here to serve our customers and farmers, no matter how they choose to be served. But we hope the savings will make it worth your while to allow us to fill your tank in the most efficient manner possible.

Will we make some mistakes? Most likely, but the reality is the odds of a mistake drop significantly as the efficiency of our fleet increases. We’ve invested heavily in new equipment during the last few years, from new 10-wheel delivery trucks to crane trucks to service vehicles. Gone are the days when our people had to compromise their safety because they were working with subpar equipment.

We will share more information regarding the discount structure for scheduled deliveries soon. We are excited about this program, and we think it has the potential to be a real asset to your operation as well as make your life a little bit easier. At the end of the day, you will decide how you want us to serve you, and we thank you for choosing MFA Oil!