Regal Seed and Grain heading to China

Owners Damien and Jonnie White, Biloela, will be heading to China with the Toowoomba and Surat Basin Enterprise group to speak to importers, wholesalers and customers. 

Mr White said the business currently prepares the beans, as well as chickpeas and consumable crops, for export by other companies. 

Moving down the supply chain to gain more control of the end product was a natural progression, Mr White said.

 “​That’s what got us involved in the enterprise group, and basically we’re going through the process with them just exploring whether the next step might be something that we can engage in, and add bit of value and security to our business just in case some of the other markets get a bit oversupplied,” Mr White said. 

Mrs White said their products were exported “all over the world”, but their largest market was Asia. 

“We’re both ex-DPI science people, Damien is a pulse scientist, and probably about 15 years ago he decided to have a career change and went into the ‘doing’ side of things instead of the ‘researching’,” Mrs White said. 

“Essentially we receive, we clean and we pack for export mungbeans, chickpeas and a few other things.”

Mrs White said she hoped the trip to China would give her and Mr White a greater understanding of the local market.

She said the opportunity provided by the enterprise group was one which could greatly improve the business model of Regal Seed and Grain. 

“TSBE was advertising a series of workshop events where they were talking about opportunities for businesses, mostly in the Western Downs, into China and Asia and because we were already in a position where we were thinking of value adding… we thought we’d go along and listen,” she said. 

“We just wanted to get a feel for what was out there on offer, and certainly programs like TSBE are running are great... to hold people’s hands when they’re charging into unknown territory. 

“It makes what is a scary step much less scary. 

“What we really want to do is maintain the product that we’re producing for ourselves and our growers.”

She said while she has never visited China, Mr White has, and she said the gain for the business could be huge.

“I want to get a feel for how things are over there, how they shop, how they eat our product,” Mrs White said.

“We’d like to make contact with all the people on the chain - the wholesalers… and learn what they want in the product.”

Mrs White said being able to be on-the-ground speaking to people from every step of the supply chain would give her and Mr White a unique insight into the Asian market, and offer a chance to shape their business around the demand of the importer.