Back in 2005 Farm Source started direct importing essential animal health minerals under the Country Mile brand. In 2024 Country Mile now includes a much wider range of products catering for our farmer's everyday farm essentials.
"Animal health is still by far our biggest category, but we are expanding fast into Fencing, Animal Equipment, and our Country Mile Dairy and Complementary Nutrition products are very popular. We are very particular about where and who we partner with to source our product ranges – we still source most of our products locally. We have strategic relationships with our vendors and work collaboratively to get the best products for our farmers," Terry says.
The Country Mile team has a detailed process for getting products to market and farm testing is an integral part of product selection. It can often take one to two years before a product hits the shelves at Farm Source and the team has a two to three-year development pipeline.
"There is a lot of due diligence involved. Once we have identified a potential product, we will go through an audit process to ensure any new supplier meets our requirements. Responsible sourcing and sustainable packaging are key. We then go through a sampling process starting with the supplier and with our local test farmers, we'll invariably tweak the final design to suit our conditions, requirements and if fit for purpose," Terry says.
"We then lock in the final specifications. It does take a bit of time but the end result means our farmers have a robust product at an everyday low price. We will reject products that don’t meet our standards through this process."
For imported ranges, the quality assurance and testing process continues throughout the shipping and distribution process with random sampling to ensure our acceptable quality standards are consistently met. Even when a product hits the shelves, the Country Mile team will continue to review and refine it as required.
When it comes to customer feedback, Terry says "silence is golden".
"If you don’t get a lot of chatter, you generally know your product is landing well. Our store staff know our farmers very well so if there is any issue, we know we will hear about it pretty quickly. We make a concerted effort to resolve any issues for our farmers as soon as possible. We provide all our products with a full warranty, and we also backup after sales with spare parts on some of our popular fencing lines like our geared reels to extend their life on farm."
The team is now in the process of launching a host of new product lines and has some innovative designs in the animal equipment space for launch for this coming season, combined with an expansion of the Country Mile fencing range.
Visit nzfarmsource.co.nz/countrymile to view the range or visit your local Farm Source store.