AgWired

First the product announcements come out in droves, then it’s people announcements. Iron Solutions has someone new to lead their sales efforts.

IRON Solutions, LLC announced the appointment of Bruce Arduser, vice president of sales. Arduser brings more than 30 years of sales and marketing experience to IRON Solutions (www.ironsolutions.com). He has spent most of his career in sales management, primarily with Pioneer/DuPont, building sales teams, developing their skills and providing leadership to accomplish growth goals. “We are thrilled to have Bruce join our company and to lead our sales and marketing team,” said Merlyn Friesen, president and CEO.

Valent just announced some organizational changes that sure look like they’re adding a lot to someone’s work load! As the head man Trevor certainly had a full time job. Now he’s taking on all field sales? Wow.

Valent U.S.A. Corporation has announced president and chief operating officer Trevor Thorley will assume direct responsibility of all field sales related activity as part of the company’s commitment to creating a closer working relationship with customers. In addition to his responsibilities as General Manager for Region Americas for Sumitomo Chemical in the United States and Latin America, Thorley will oversee the overall direction for Valent’s crop sales organization, professional products group and Canadian businesses. “This reorganization is designed to reinforce Valent’s focus on customer care within every facet of our business,” said Thorley.

To support Valent’s commitment in field operations, the company welcomes Danny Rogers as the new strategic accounts manager and Alan Kennedy as the new western regional manager.

Here’s an announcement from Syngenta that is filled with words I love, like “burndown.” That’s what I want to do to weeds, burn them down! Even better this new formulation is more “user-friendly.”

An innovative new formulation of paraquat herbicide, just registered by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), sets a higher industry standard for protection of users while delivering the same effective broad-spectrum weed control that US growers have relied on for more than 40 years. New Gramoxone Inteon™ herbicide from Syngenta Crop Protection is as effective as Gramoxone Max® in burndown and harvest aid uses, and offers an effective alternative to glyphosate technology.

“Gramoxone Inteon is a major advance in product stewardship and reduced risk,” said Rusty Wendt, Syngenta brand manager. “This new innovative formulation continues the Gramoxone tradition by providing outstanding weed control and an effective weed resistance management tool option.”

This is a two blog post. That means that it will appear on AgWired and on World Dairy Diary. Why? Because these folks did a great media relations event at World Dairy Expo and they have new product news.

They are Virtus Nutrition & Lallemand. Now I don’t know about you but it’s not easy to understand and write about what these folks make. However, they did what it took to get the media there and “explain” it. We were invited to a wine tasting/product discussion. I missed the introduction so I never did fully understand the relationship between Virtus and Lallemand, except that Lallemand manufacturers and Virtus distributes.

However, Lallemand makes yeast and yeast is used in wine making. In fact, we learned that most of the wine made in the world uses Lallemand manufactured yeast! Yeast is also used in animal nutrition and there are different kinds of yeast that produce different kinds of results.

So, what they did was have us taste 3 different kinds of wine that were made with all the same ingredients except that the yeast for each was different. They all tasted different and this demonstrated the whole point of the presentation that followed on animal nutrition! Very creative and very well done. Besides, they brought in a wine expert, Lallemand’s own Bob Charley, who is a forage products manager. He was excellent. In fact, the wine was excellent.

The best part was leaving though and receiving a 2-bottle wine holder with corkscrew and a bottle of red and white inside! I only have the white left. They stocked the holders with New Glarus Primrose Winery products, which was also a good idea since we were in Wisconsin and the winery is located in New Glarus, WI. Let’s do it again Lallemand & Virtus.

Virtus Nutrition, headquartered in Fairlawn, Ohio, today introduced Strata G™ with Omega-3 Fatty Acids, the first in a line of new products to appear under the new Strata G brand name. “Strata G products feature specific fatty acids, such as omega-3’s, that are meant to be strategically fed at a specific time for a specific result,” said Scott Sorrell, Director of Marketing for Virtus Nutrition.

Virtus Nutrition, headquartered in Fairlawn, Ohio, today announced a new, patented manufacturing process — Engineered Fatty Acid Conversion Technology (EFACT™) — that enables the company to produce calcium salts from virtually any fat source. “Science is just beginning to discover and understand the power of certain specific fatty acids,” said Dr. Steve Koenig, President and CEO of NutriScience Technologies, holding company of Virtus Nutrition. “EFACT gives us the ability to build new products with virtually any fatty acid profile from a wide variety of fat sources”.”

Hello you wine drinkers. You fall into one of six basic groups. Bet you didn’t know that. Constellation Wines has announced the results of Project Genome, one of the largest consumer research projects ever conducted by the wine industry. I want to fall into the “Satisfied Sipper” group and since it’s about time to make supper perhaps I should go get satisfied.

The online study of more than 3,500 premium wine consumers indicates that there is no typical wine consumer; rather, consumers tend to fall into six unique segments, each with its own set of attributes, motivations, preferences and shopping behaviors. The results include fresh insight on premium wine consumers’ drinking and buying habits and on psychological and lifestyle factors. It will have wide-ranging impact on wine sales by retailers and on-premise establishments in areas ranging from packaging, advertising and customer education to grocery displays and restaurant wine lists.

According to the study, conducted by Copernicus Marketing Consulting and Research, Inc., premium wine consumers surveyed fell into six segments: Enthusiast, Image Seeker, Savvy Shopper, Traditionalist, Satisfied Sipper and Overwhelmed.

To figure out which one you are, visit their website to read more about it, including descriptions of each segment.

Speaking of teaming up deals, here’s another one. Pioneer is working together with DFS, Inc. on a grain testing pilot on animal nutrition.

Pioneer Hi-Bred International, Inc., and DFS, Inc., have announced a joint research collaboration to measure levels of digestible energy (DE) in corn grain for animal feed. Pioneer, the world’s largest seed company, and DFS, a leading regional feed manufacturer, will use this information to better manage grain quality variation in the feed production process.

This research effort will use proprietary NIR (near infrared) technology developed by Pioneer which measures grain DE for monogastric animals such as hogs and poultry. By measuring the DE levels of corn grain, DFS will be better able to evaluate and manage the inbound nutritional value of grain, which will result in more efficient feed production process control.