Brandi Buzzard, Feedpail.com – The Future of Feeding: July 13th 2012

By: Brandi Buzzard

Technology is used in most day to day activities, whether it is in the tractor utilizing GPS, syncing a feeding system to regulate diets in a nursery barn or just uploading a photo via a smart phone. It’s infiltrating the agriculture industry and most recently, it’s helping producers find the right feed stuffs.

Feedpail.com is a revolutionary site that allows livestock producers, managers and employees to research bulk feed resources and prices. Buyers can conduct a nation-wide search for a wide variety of feedstuffs including amino acids, animal proteins, minerals and fats & oils and also determine if there are substitutes for high cost ingredients. In addition to finding the right ‘stuffs’ (pardon the pun), buyers can arrange for shipping and delivery quickly and easily; Feedpail.com handles finding the delivery source if the supplier doesn’t offer that service. The entire bidding process is kept anonymous until the sale is made and then buyer and seller information is shared, ensuring the privacy of each party.

Ryan Cooney, founder of Feedpail.com, created the site because he recognized that producers are exposed to a lot of market volatility when trying to buy bulk feeds and were spending several days tracking down bulk feed ingredients looking for availability and right price. By creating an online marketplace, Cooney and Feedpail.com have shortened the amount of time that goes into the feed buying process. One of Feedpail.com’s many valuable features is that it allows you to search multiple regions or states at the same time which is a time saver, to say the least. This feature allows producers to search multiple sources much more quickly than calling individual suppliers.

Another of Feedpail.com’s great attributes is that there is no cost to buy, sell or sign-up for the service. It merely serves as a gateway to finding the resources producers need to operate their businesses. I became a member and did some searches for components of finisher rations and the results were impressive. I found four suppliers close to my home that were competitively priced and had freight options available. Furthermore, the site allows producers to explore alternative feedstuffs if the ingredient they’re searching for is too expensive or isn’t available.

Although Feedpail.com was just launched in June, it has attracted a tremendous amount of attention. Cooney says that there are approximately 300 individual feedstuff searches per day and he expects that to increase as more features are added to the website. Cooney is looking forward to implementing a new platform and adding a reverse auction feature this coming fall. The objective is to enable producers to make easy, informed decisions when purchasing feed ingredients.

Whether you are involved in bulk feed purchasing or not, Feedpail.com is a website worth a few minutes of your time. I discovered how many different types of feed ingredients can be utilized in a ration as alternatives to more commonly used ingredients and also got a taste of how easy the feed purchasing process can be, given the right circumstances and technology. I look forward to the further development of Feedpail.com, as I see it as a very valuable industry tool to today’s livestock producers.

**This is an unpaid review of a product. Neither SwineWeb.com  nor Brandi Buzzard were compensated by Feedpail.com to write or publish this post**

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Brandi Buzzard is a native of Colony, KS where she grew up rodeoing and showing livestock with her family.  A passionate agriculture advocate, she authors a blog about current industry issues and contributes to the NCBA YPC and Food For Thought blogs. She attended Kansas State University where she earned her B.S. in Animal Sciences and Agriculture Economics and is continuing her education there while pursuing a M.S. in Animal Behavior, Well-Being and Health.

Brandi is active in a variety of agriculture organizations including the Kansas Livestock Association, the National Pork Board’s Operation Main Street, the National Cattlemen’s Beef Association Young Producer’s Council  and Food For Thought. Outside of her professional interests she enjoys spending time with her husband and family, rodeoing, working on the farm and globetrotting.