Key Cooperative Update on COVID-19

04/02/2020  By Sara Clausen, Director of Communications and Member Relations  

Posted March 30, 2020

Key Cooperative Operational Continuity Plan

During this unprecedented time, Key will be limiting grain operations at many locations to appointment only. We’re encouraging you to call us first to arrange for delivery. We will notify customers by text of the days we will be onsite to receive grain. This measure is only being taken to preserve operational capacity across the cooperative and reduce disruptions in agronomy, energy and feed operations. The following operational adjustments will go into effect by the end of day, April 3, 2020:

• The Barnes City office will be closed. Please call the location to arrange for grain delivery and feed needs. For QLF or creep feed, contact Dustin Drexler: 319-560-4442
• The St. Anthony office will be closed. We will notify customers by text any days we are open.
• The Sully Energy & Retail Center as well as Lumber and Construction Services counters will be closed to public access. Please call those locations to arrange for product pickup or delivery service.
• The New Sharon office will be closed. Agronomy operations will continue on-site and grain will be by appointment only.
• The Zearing office will be closed. Agronomy operations will continue on-site and grain will be by appointment only.
• The Grinnell grain elevator office will be closed. Grain will be trucked to the feed mill daily, but please call the location to arrange for grain delivery, which will be by appointment only.
• The CENTROL shop office in Grinnell will be by appointment only.
• The Story City grain elevator office will be closed. Please call the location to arrange for grain delivery which will be by appointment only.
• The Newton Rail office will be closed unless we are on-site shipping grain. We will notify customers by text if the rail office is open.
• The Gilbert, Kelley & LeGrand locations will be receiving grain by appointment only. Please call the location to arrange for grain delivery and to arrange product pick-up, delivery or applications. Office and operational personnel are on-site to serve customer needs, however, please restrict your visits at these offices to help us stop the spread of COVID-19.
  For Gilbert feed needs, contact Justin Crocheck: 515-291-0763
• The Grinnell Feed Mill, Nevada, Newton elevator, S14 and Sully locations will all generally be open daily for receiving grain. Grinnell Agronomy Center will remain open. Operational staff will be on-site to take care of customer needs. Please restrict your visits at these offices to help us stop the spread of COVID-19.

We fully intend to resume normal operation as soon as conditions allow. COVID-19 has changed our world. Regardless of our personal thoughts, opinions or situations, we are obligated to figure out how to best operate in the present and near-term environment. Keeping everyone healthy remains our first priority. Despite all these changes, I remain optimistic that our goals are attainable. The work will get done. We can all help stop the spread. We can all be part of the solution. It will require significant effort, sacrifice and commitment from all of us. By working with each other and accepting the challenge, we will all succeed, together.

– Boyd Brodie, General Manager

 

Posted: March 23, 2020

COVID-19 Notice: Effective March 23, 2020, Key Cooperative adjusts business practices.

The most important thing we can express right now is our appreciation for your support and understanding as we work together during this unprecedented time. We intend to operate all of our locations, however with restricted access and a limited workforce. Moving forward, we have implemented some temporary changes to our business practices:

Limitation of face-to-face meetings

We pride ourselves in personal meetings with our customers. However, that personal touch now carries risk. Until further notice, our sales team will not be making face-to-face sales calls and will be contacting you via phone or email. The use of video chat is valuable and can be close to personal meetings without the risk of spreading COVID-19.

Restricting visitors at our facilities

Our goal is to meet the needs of our customers safely. To limit our team’s exposure, we’re halting all non-essential visits to our locations. For people who are visiting, such as delivery drivers or maintenance contractors, we’re asking everyone call our offices rather than entering and coordinate a plan to conduct business. All visitors should have their name added to our Visitor Log.

Payments

Please do not bring a check into a location to make a payment. If you wish to make a payment with a check, simply mail it to your Key location. Additionally, we encourage you to pay online through MY ACCOUNT on the Key Cooperative website. Another option would be to set up Automatic Bill pay (ACH). That form can be found on our website: www.keycoop.com –> About –> Customer Support -> Automatic Bill Payment

Product pick-up and delivery

We will happily arrange for spring product delivery. However, upon arrival to your property, we would request the practice of social distancing. We also request you disinfect any equipment necessary for the delivery before, then again after our team leaves. If you prefer to pick up your own product, please call at arrival and we will load your truck/trailer while you wait in your vehicle.

Seed, Crop Nutrition & Crop Protection – Will we have enough? 

We have been working diligently for months to position ourselves with the necessary spring products. We are in constant communication with our industry business partners on product supply and logistics. At this time, we anticipate being able to meet all our customers’ known spring needs.

Grain checks

Please make arrangements to have your grain checks mailed to you rather than picked up in person at our locations. For even more efficient payments, we encourage you to take advantage of our direct deposit program. That form can be found on our website: www.keycoop.com –> About –> Customer Support ->Direct Deposit

• For specific questions in regards to grain checks or direct deposit questions, please contact:

  • Morgan Goodmanson (Nevada Office): 515-382-8229

  • Kim Staecker (Sully Office): 641-594-8124

Grain contracts

Please work with your location or a member of our grain team to have any grain contracts mailed to you, signed and then returned in a postage-paid envelope.

Grain marketing

For specific grain marketing questions, or to forward contract grain, please contact:

• Zack Gardner ( Nevada Office): 641-521-1834

• Kirk Berry (Sully Office): 641-990-9770

• Greg Artz ( Kelley Office): 515-215-0062

Grain – Inbound Deliveries

As we anticipate potential reductions in our workforce, please call ahead and coordinate your grain deliveries with your location. We may select only specific days to accept inbound grain deliveries. If we make changes to location hours/availability, the location will post this information in advance and you will receive notification. If you have not done so already, please join our text list so we can keep you up-to-date with the latest information. (Contact your Key location to learn how to be added to our text list.)

Propane deliveries

We will continue to deliver propane. To minimize contact with customers, we will not be leaving a delivery ticket on your door. We will mail delivery tickets at your request. Additionally, we have limited all other propane activity to out-of-gas calls only.

Feed deliveries

We will continue to deliver feed. Animal food processing has been identified as critical infrastructure in our state. Our feed division will be taking extra measures to identify contingency plans should we have future restrictions.

Community support 

At this time, it is important to continue our support our local communities. The impact of COVID-19 has impacted people and businesses in different ways, so we want to remind everyone to keep your local communities in mind.

We continue to stay as healthy as we can at each of our locations and we encourage all of our member-owners to practice their own diligence at home to keep their families healthy as well!

Posted: March 17, 2020

Key Cooperative Member-Owners & Customers:

As a nation, we are certainly experiencing anxious times. The daily reports of COVID 19 (Coronavirus), pandemic have consumed our conversations and the collateral impact of this extraordinary event has started to take effect.

As a member-owned cooperative, the safety and well-being of our member-owners, employees, and community is and will always be front and center. We are obligated to manage the continuity of our business for the best interests of everyone involved. Our customers have animals to be fed, houses and buildings that need heat, field work to be done, crops to be planted in the coming month, grain to be sold and bills to pay.

Last week, we established a task force who is charged with continuously assessing the situation and carefully working on contingency plans related to all aspects of our business. Some of the efforts we invite you to participate in to safeguard everyone’s health, and ensure business continuity are as follows:

• Consider your daily business needs and if possible, call your location rather than coming in.

• Consider any in-person meetings you have scheduled with a member of the sales team. We would be more than happy to conference call you or set up a virtual meeting.

• Consider the option of automatic bill pay *

• Consider signing up to have your grain payments direct deposited *

• If entering a location, please sign into our visitor’s log. Should there be a future outbreak, we can communicate the risk of exposure to you.

At this time, our locations will remain open and our team continues to prepare for spring field work! Nevertheless, we must remain diligent with our prevention efforts of COVID-19 and disciplined in our preparation. For this reason, we will continue to take the guidance from the Iowa Department of Public Health and the CDC to ensure our locations can continue to serve our customers.

*ACH forms for automatic bill pay and grain direct deposit can be found here on our website: https://www.keycoop.com/customer-support/