By Eric Jenks
Poulin Grain Senior Vice President and General Manager Mike Tetrault, looks over data with Dr. Christine Rossiter Burhans, staff veterinarian.
Poulin Grain, with four facilities in Vermont, has been serving the feed needs of the agricultural community in the Northeast since 1932. “Poulin Grain is a family run business in its fourth generation,” said Mike Tetreault, the Senior Vice President and General Manager of the business. “Josh Poulin is the owner. Family businesses are sadly becoming fewer and farther between. It’s definitely a shrinking part of the world, but family is important to our culture here at Poulin Grain. I’ve been here for 33 years, and we have a lot of longevity to our workforce, and being focused on our community and families is what has shaped us to be who we are today as a company.”
Poulin Grain’s focus as a company breaks down into two main subsections, dairy nutrition and retail. Their four facilities employ 150 workers, and the retail arm of their operations go to approximately 200 different stores in the Northeast. “Dairy nutrition is the largest part of our business, it’s about a 70/30 split between that and the retail end. Our retail business goes from the border of Canada in Vermont down to Virginia, with some support in Florida as well for equine businesses during the winter, and out to Western Pennsylvania currently. On the dairy side, we support Vermont, New Hampshire, Connecticut, Massachusetts, Maine and New York based dairies. We have eighteen dairy nutritionists and two veterinarians on staff.
As with many other companies, Covid-19 has presented its share of challenges and opportunities for Poulin Grain. “Our dairy nutritionists have good relationships with our customers, and when you see milk go from $22 - $12, you know that things are going to be tough, and that those prices mean that farms can’t meet their obligations,” said Tetrault. “That puts a lot of pressure and stress on our team for those 3-4 months, as we want to do what we can to make sure that nutrition needs are being met and to help with customers that we also consider friends. Our nutritionists worked to review where farms were nutrition wise, and help them not make a long term mistake when dealing with their herds’ health.”
For the dealer side of their business, Poulin found a welcome change. “The world seems to be more supportive of local business, and our dealers have flourished since then,” said Tetrault. “It created challenges for us with ingredients coming in slowly due to delivery changes. For three weeks we were running 24/7, but we got it done and supported our dealer network. It was a bit like the toilet paper scenario with a rush on feed by customers. But we delivered every load asked of us, and I have to say I don’t know how. Our business has been strong in retail, milk prices are recovering, and we’re hopeful that dairy funds will help our dairies through that and have a successful year for 2020.”
For Tetrault, staying positive and keeping the family nature of Poulin Grain together during the most challenging months of the pandemic were essential for their business. “We worked hard to support everyone on our team during these challenging months. We had monthly consultants that couldn’t do what they normally do, employees that had to stay at home, etc. We’re grateful we didn’t have to reduce our staff, and in fact we added three new people. I’ve worked with our team to stay positive. Everyone talks about it, but we actually train our team to be positive. One thing that has made a huge difference for us is that attitude. I think we’re stronger today because they have that tool to use during tough times. We have to stay positive and not get down with the doom and gloom that is going around. The Northeast has to have people that want to do that and keep this industry growing.”