Saratoga GDU Clenches Select Pride Award
posted on Thursday, June 3, 2021
“Each individual is the reason we have success here,” shared Craig, the manager of Saratoga. “It’s all about the team, not just one person.”
Congratulations to the Saratoga gilt developer team on clenching the first-place spot for SelectPride Q4.
Craig has been managing the farm for two years and works alongside Alfonso, Pablo, David, Nick, Elsy, Angela, and Samuel.
It’s clear when you talk to the team that they set big expectations for themselves for excellent pig care. “We want to be an outstanding farm,” said Craig. “To do this, we know we need to work as a cohesive team and be good at communicating with each other.”
Craig says the team has worked hard on building trust with each other, to the point where they can all admit when mistakes are made. “No one is afraid to come to me with a problem, and we all learn from each other.”
Jeremiah, Craig’s supervisor, says the team works well together because they are cross-trained, have a tremendous attention to detail and approach each day together, as a team, with the goal of getting better. “They are unbelievably thorough,” he said.
It’s a strategy and mind-set that worked. The Saratoga farm team landed in the 6th place spot quarter one and two of last year, then nudged into the number four spot in quarter three.
Craig says they steadily moved up because the team was committed to making small steps of improvement every day.
“They take their time and don’t rush through their processes and execution,” said Jeremiah, who added that Craig is always known for singing the 1989 hit, “Patience” by Guns ‘N Roses to remind everyone there’s benefit to slowing down and doing things right.
“He’s also not above busting out his YMCA moves,” chimed in Nick, who works at the farm. “He’s never above anything that will cheer us up or make us laugh.”
Jeremiah, who also oversees all the gilt developers and multiplication farms throughout the Iowa Select Farms production system, said the SelectPride ranking measures the performance of each farm, then compares that performance to the other farms in that category. Gilt developer (GDUs) performance is measured by whether the farm reached their targets for bred gilts, the percentage of confirmed pregnancies (PCP) and farrowing rate, and the scores of their production well-being and biosecurity assessments, as examples.
Craig says the patience, thoroughness and dedication of the team has led to achieving their target and earning high scores on their assessments.
“The positive culture and dynamic at Saratoga are a result of hard work and dedication to pig care,” said Jeremiah. It’s great group of people who are very dedicated to the farm, company, and each other.”
Congratulations once again to G733 Saratoga!
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