Convey-All marks 40 years with retro GMC truck fundraiser for STARS

Manage weeds early in your canola cereals and pulses with Conqueror, Gold Wing Thunderhawk and Blackhawk Evo Powered by Duplessin technology advancing the unstoppable superpower of pre seed burn down. From nufarm. I'm Amber Bell and this is Real Agriculture here today at the Western Canadian Crop Production show in Saskatoon. Talking with Garrett Darby who is the regional sales manager with Meridian. Welcome. It is great to see you Garrett. Thank you. Appreciate taking time for us. Now you are standing beside a GMC truck. Tell me a little bit about this truck and why it is at your guys booth. So conveyor. It's actually our 40th anniversary this year. So as a company in the beginning there, 1986 is when it began in Winker, Manitoba. So we kind of wanted to make a play on on the year and make some fun with it. Our marketing partner Jacob Weldy, who's the head of marketing kind of came up with the idea of first of all the retro looks that we're kind of working with and thought we would have some fun at the booth. It's something that a lot of us, we've got a fairly colourful crew and like to have some fun and I mean we're starting to play on that. And Jacobs brought this to us initially and all thought it was a great idea. The second part was our CEO Paul Cunningham and some of the other members of those group are gearheads, love vehicles. So we thought, you know what, let's maybe buy a truck and have an opportunity of that vintage, a square body and have an opportunity to play with that. And then the next step was it's great to buy a vehicle but I mean what are we going to gain out of it? What are we going to get out of it? So I mean obviously you've probably done more than one interview and discussion in the past on STARS and what STARS means to the agricultural industry. So for us to be able to give back on that side of the things we thought was there's going to be a tonne of value to that. So what we're going to do throughout the summer is the truck will be trailered around when we go to ag shows. Whether it be Ag in Motion, whether it be Ag Days and Brandon Agritrade and Red Deer. It will make its way to Louisville, Kentucky for the Farm Progress show down there. Big Iron in Fargo. So we're going to move it around as we go, have it on display at the booth and at the end of the year, December 2nd of this year, we're going to auction it off. It'll be going being auctioned off. Ritchie Brothers has donated the opportunity and they've been very helpful with us as well. So Richie Brothers will be auctioning off December 2nd and all proceeds will go towards Stars which is like I said, a cause that we all is endeared to the agricultural industry as a whole. Wonderful. And tell me a little bit more about the truck. So it is a GMC. It's a 1986 GMC 350. They've redone the engine in there. So when we bought it Edelbrock Intake they've done a whole bunch of upgrades to it. So what we've done is some of the paint. The paint came initially but we've done the decals on the side. So I'm obviously trading on the 40th year of the convey all we've decorated it on that. We're actually putting some different tyres on there going forward. I drove it home from the truck shop and went through the other day in the snow. This doesn't travel real well on snow. So we've kind of gone on the road of putting something more practical on changing the rims up that way. The interior actually we're going to redo the interior as well. Right now it is a black and white interior. We're going to trade on the obviously the convey all colours and we're going to change the interior to black and yellow. So go with that and just kind of dress it up a little bit. Box cover. We did put a spray and box liner in it. So we've done a bunch of upgrades to it on top of what we initially bought it for. And I mean the one neat thing about it through this show a lot of people stopped in. It's certainly been an attention grabber and lots of conversations starting around it. So I mean obviously again what it's for is really what we're after. But it's nice to have nice vehicles and you as well as well as I know that a lot of farms are guys got nice trucks in the farm. So it's just another talking point for sure. And it's definitely a nice looking truck. Now let's go to the equipment side. You have a stainless steel conveyor in behind you. Yes. Tell me a little bit about why stainless steel. Tell me a little bit about this unit. Yeah. So for us and this is something actually being in. I grew up in Saskatchewan. I'm in Manitoba now. But a lot of the growers out here with their drills. The speed of filling a drill was getting a little bit behind with conveyors and augers that were on the side of most carts, pulling it out, moving it in. So a lot of guys have actually gone to the steps of actually just pulling a conveyor around and loading their air carts that way. So the reality is fertiliser is hard on things, especially on mild steel. So for us, we started out and we actually create three different options in the way we go about it is we'll do a mild steel unit, we'll do a unit with stainless steel at the top and the bottom, so your intake and your spout. At the top, we do stainless steel and then we do a complete unit. And I would say most of the guys that do custom floating, it's kind of become a market for them where they're using fertiliser all the time. It's really hard on things. So, I mean, obviously creating longevity that way as well. A lot of guys, after a while, things get tired, belts get tired, so they look at the opportunity. What's my resale value going to be? So for them, when I go, all of a sudden I go to say a flaming or I go to a full line ag or I want to go trade my conveyor back in, there's value left in that unit when I bring it back in. Whereas you put a fertiliser through a unit that's not stainless steel. Obviously a lot harder on the equipment and it's harder to turn around. Me, I farm myself. Do I want to buy a piece of equipment that's wore it out? Not really, but this would be something. There'd be some value left over at the end of the day with that. So a lot on offer at Meridian. Where can growers go for more information, whether that be on the truck or on the conveyor? Well, for us, on the. On the that side of things, you can go to the conveyor website. That is definitely one touch point reaching out to our 1-800-line. We'll put you in place with me, discussions with myself regarding that. And I mean, we've got a large dealer network in Western Canada, so that's a nice thing. Lots of good companies and lots of good retailers to work with. So lots of different touch points to find more information. Wonderful. Well, thank you so much. And that was Garrett Darby on Real agriculture. Awesome.