The end to a great trip

The final day of our trip involved listening to the closing presentations at the Global Grain Asia conference and then holding a debrief with the whole study tour group. It was great to receive everyone's feedback and heartwarming to hear many of the growers and staff describe their experiences on the trip as 'privileged' and 'connected'.

We were lucky to have such a positive, open minded group of people come along for the journey and to hear from them the understanding and connection they have developed with the customers and the CBH strategy for this region is fantastic. We have been very proud to provide this opportunity.

The day concluded with CBH hosting a cocktail party in partnership with ASX. The night was a huge success with over 150 customers, traders, brokers, consultants and of course our growers attending the night and enjoying a few Singapore Slings.

Today we have returned to Perth and to our families safe and sound with plans for the next reunion already in place. Thank you to the whole group for making this such a unique and amazing trip - see you soon!!!

Global Grain Asia conference photos

Day 8 - Global Grain Asia Conference

We've hit the Global Grain Asia conference and joined our CBH colleagues Tom Puddy, Head of Marketing and James Foulsham and Stephen Moyle from the Trading team. It's great to catch up with many of our customers and the trade. Today's blog is from Brian McAlpine, our Grower Director on the trip from Latham.............

Well respected analyst Emily French, ConsoliAgra concluded in her presentation that neutral weather conditions globally will result in a sustained bearish wheat market. Wheat will have feed demand taken away from it from increasing corn production. Global grain stocks across all soft commodities currently are not causing any concern.

Indian wheat production has increased to 93 million tonnes resulting in 8 million tonnes being exported. All export is still put through manual labour. SE Asian flour mills are starting to use small amounts with quality issues being slowly understood.

It was great to meet the Interflour procurement team member Ben Gliddon, Pricing Manager, who explained what process and challenges presented to them to be able to supply the six Interflour flour mills. Grain is purchased mainly on basis and converted to a fixed position closer to execution. With some of our flour mills only being able to handle the smaller handymax vessels provides freight challenges. The team use advice from the Intergrain R & D centre headed by Dr Nas with reports on quality and value.

Talking to delegates from the conference it has come across that CBH has an envious position with its market share of the West Australian grains industry. The low fobbing costs in WA as compared to Eastern Australia was noted in a panel discussion but was also noted that Australia has on average an expensive fobbing cost as compared to other markets. CBH platinum sponsorship of the conference indicates that we are a serious player and are well positioned into the future to capture growth potential.


A new port and grain facility based in Vladivostok in Eastern peninsula of Russia will be commissioned by 2015. This will open up significant freight advantage for the Siberia wheat growing region into the Asian market. The Siberian market produces 3.9mmt annually and would pose a competitive threat. Also the widening of the Panama Canal will increase opportunity for Brazil to supply soybean to Asia if they can improve infrastructure in the North.

Global quantitative easing has created a flood of money but may not be the solution for Western world markets. Agriculture land will be a beneficiary of institutional money as they look for hard assets providing an inflation hedge.

Day 7 - Singapore shopping!

Today was a pretty quiet day. We caught any early flight from Jakarta to Singapore and then did a spot of shopping at the fabulous Singapore shops, finished off by a lovely night on the canals enjoying chilli crab. The Global Grain Asia Conference starts tomorrow. Will check in then.

Pics from Day 6

Day 6 - Bogasari and Indofood Instant Noodle Factory

Today we spent the day with Indofood looking at their Bogasari Flour Mill and their Instant Noodle Factory in Jakarta. The sheer size and scale of this company is phenomenal, with an integrated approach to production. Just to give you an idea of products they produce and the divisions of the business; they produce instant noodles, dairy products, infant and pregnancy products, food seasoning and sauces, snack food, biscuits, pasta and of course flour. They also own palm oil plantations and produce palm oil and run their own logistics and distribution network including the ownership of 2 Panamax and 5 handymax vessels!!! Today's trip report is from Tim Bock from Jerramungup........

Take home points I would like to share with other WA growers:
- Bogasari produce 51% of the flour in the Indonesian market.
- From 1970-78 there were only 5 mills in Indonesia, from 1999-2008 6 new mills were built and from 2008- 2013 10 new mills have been developed with another 3-4 to finish production in the next few years. So Bogasari now have many competitors.
- Currently the two Indofood flour mills produce 3.8mmt of flour pa and Bogasari will expand soon to add 5,000 - 6,000t/day new capacity.
- Price and protein content are the main factors taken into consideration when Bogasari are buying wheat. For noodle flour they require 10.5% protein wheat and at the moment buy approximately 70% Australian wheat for their flour production.
- As a customer they would like the wheat to have a Falling Number of 330 to 340.
- The flour millers are increasingly blending flour rather than gristing (mixing) wheat in the milling process now so they can achieve greater accuracy in their flour blends and products.
- Indofood Instant Noodle Factory produces 7,040,000 packets of instant noodles per day with the mill running at 22 hrs per day!!!

Interesting facts and figures:
- Indofood exports 3 x 25ft sea containers of instant noodles to Australia every week.
- 66% of Bogasari flour goes to Small/Medium Enterprises and 34% goes to Institutional Enterprises.
- The growth in flour consumption in Indonesia is approximately 7% pa. With the population growing at 2% pa 5% of the growth can be attributed to changing trends in consumption.
- most bikes and cars in Jakarta drive around with their windscreen wipers up. When we asked they told us it was so they don't melt onto the windscreen with the heat.
- The Bogasari minimum wage paid to milling employees is 250USD/month and the company provides many benefits for the employees including meals, transportation, medical benefits and housing assistance after 5 years employment with the company.

Pics from Day 5

Day 5 - Local cultural tour of Jakarta

We're 5 days into the trip and we are all worried it is going too quickly!! We have a fantastic group of people and we are all enjoying learning so much from each other over our long chats stuck in traffic or at dinner or a bar. Today we took a trip around the city with EPFM staff and the President Director of EPFM Rudi. Today's trip report is from Lindsay Tuckwell from Kondinin..............

Take home points from today's tour:
- In 1605 'Black Gold' (nutmeg) was found in Indonesia.
- The original name for Jakarta was Jaya Karta then when the Dutch arrived they changed the name to Batavia. In 1942 the Japanese conquered the Dutch and changed the name of the city to Jakarta.
- Today the population of Jakarta is fluid, the are 13 million people in Jakarta Monday to Friday and then 9 million on the weekends.
- There is no subway in Indonesia because of the threat of earthquakes.
- Indonesia has 17,500 islands with 3,000 of them inhabited.

Interesting facts and figures from today's tour:
- Indonesia does not grow any wheat. Rice is grown in central Java
- There are 6 million motorbikes and 1,000 new cars a day.
- the world Muslim is the English word for Islam.
- The grand mosque of Indonesia was opened in 1945 to celebrate Indonesia's independence. It holds 200,000 people and has 666 water points and it's highest point is 6,666 feet high
- The National Monument is considered '0' point for Jakarta and everything is measured in distance from this point.
- in Indonesia there are 5 recognized religions: Muslim (85% - the largest Muslim population in the world), Protestant (5%), Catholic (5%), Hindu (2.5%) and Buddhist (2.5%).
- on Sunday mornings no cars are allowed in the central area until 12pm
- The five rules of Islam are:
1 Believe in Allah
2 Pray 5 times a day
3 Fast for a month a year
4 Give 2.5% of your income back to Islam
5 Make a pilgrimage once in a lifetime

More photos from Day 4 - what a fantastic day!