GrainCorp is ramping up its stockfeed market activities in New Zealand, taking advantage of its bulk liquid storage capacity to offer a national molasses supply service.
The big Australian grain handling marketing and processing business began importing molasses from Asia early this year to complement its GrainCorp Feeds menu in NZ.
While best known for its broadacre grain sector businesses and related food processing ventures in Australia, GrainCorp has been supplying mixed ration products to the NZ livestock sector since buying the 85-year-old trans-Tasman Gardner Smith oilseed, stockfeed and bulk storage business in 2012.
GrainCorp Feeds’ NZ operations are primarily pitched to the dairy market and until now have concentrated on dry ration meal and pelleted products blended at its facilities at New Plymouth and Waharoa on the North Island.
However, with five bulk terminal sites from Bluff in the deep south to Tauranga in the Bay of Plenty, the company has opted to make use of its storage space to introduce liquid feeds, too.
The genetics available to farmers today mean there is a lot of potential to maximise milk production from fewer cows if you know how to feed them appropriately
- Jeff Summerville, GrainCorp
In separate tanks GrainCorp also stores tallow for export to biodiesel markets, and imported edible oils such as Australian canola and South American sunflower oil used in its cooking oils and spreads manufacturing business in Auckland.
It also has eight liquid terminals sites in Australia handling edible oils and fats, chemicals and petroleum.
“We have plenty of expertise in the bulk liquid market so moving into molasses in NZ has been a fairly natural fit with our stockfeed offering,” said GrainCorp Oils trading and risk manager Jeff Summerville.
“Molasses and suspension mixes are also product areas we’re already servicing in Australia.
“In NZ demand is particularly strong in the post calving period.”
He said a dry summer across much of the country, and subsequently higher grain prices, had also demand for the energy-rich sugar by-product this year.
Mr Summerville was part of the company’s team at this month’s NZ Fieldays where GrainCorp has a solid profile among visiting farmers, providing advice on how to maximise their milk production.
He said while dairying was mostly pasture-based, demand for supplementary feeds had grown noticeably in certain quarters, with some farms now heavily committed to mixed rations as environmental concerns forced producers to focus on modifying their herd numbers in paddocks, and their grass-fed expectations.
“The genetics available to farmers today mean there is a lot of potential to maximise milk production from fewer cows if you know how to feed them appropriately,” he said.
“That’s given rise to a lot more consideration of feeding programs that make better use of your resources, rather than just relying on bigger stocking rates for more production.”
-Andrew Marshall travelled to New Zealand as a guest of NZ Trade and Enterprise.
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Andrew Marshall
Andrew Marshall is the group agribusiness writer for ACM's state agricultural weeklies and websites. He is a former editor at The Land and has worked in various Rural Press group roles in Canberra, North Richmond (NSW) and Toowoomba (Qld).
Andrew Marshall is the group agribusiness writer for ACM's state agricultural weeklies and websites. He is a former editor at The Land and has worked in various Rural Press group roles in Canberra, North Richmond (NSW) and Toowoomba (Qld).
