Ceres Solutions and Co-Alliance, two of Indiana’s largest agricultural cooperatives, have completed a shareholder vote with 99% in favor of merging.
The companies will now be known as Keystone Cooperative, effective March 1, 2024, and headquartered in Indianapolis, Ind.
At the news of the merger, The Scoop had an in-person interview with the new cooperative’s leadership.
Keystone will be led by:
- CEO Kevin Still, currently CEO of Co-Alliance
- Executive vice president Jeff Troike, currently CEO of Ceres Solutions
- Executive vice president Scott Logue, currently executive vice president of Co-Alliance
- 20 total district directors
With a combined 1,700 employees, 20,000 farmer-owners, $3.1 billion sales revenue and 195 locations across Indiana, Illinois and Ohio, the leaders knew working together would allow them to better serve their owners.
“When you can see those types of synergies and look to the future, it’s our responsibility as a leadership team to take it to our board and say, ‘Here are the possibilities’,” Troike says. “Our members expect us to be able to deliver technology to help them be more productive, more efficient and more profitable. An organization of this size will allow us to continue to do what we’ve been doing in the future.”
Still adds, “We were geographically next to each other in a lot of places. And so in those areas, we’re going to be able to utilize assets together that before we couldn’t and I think that’s going to play a really important role.”
One of the first goals for the new company is to ensure their employee cultures are well aligned.
“The main thing we want to kick off as Keystone Cooperative is that our employees are focused on the customer and we don’t lose focus,” Troike says. “We want to make sure we communicate to our employees because they’re our most valuable asset – they take care of the customer.”
And as they move forward, Keystone’s strategy is to be a long-term solution for their customers.
“We want to continue to be a leader in the market and the employer of choice,” Still says. “We want to partner with our customers and keep that local feeling but still leverage size and scale.”
Related Articles:
Ceres Solutions and Co-Alliance to Vote on Merger
Two of Indiana’s Largest Cooperatives Pursue Due Diligence, Possible Merger
Co-Alliance Says Its Big Year Pays Back to Farmers, Its Business
