Monday 1 May to Sunday 4 June 2023 report

Last month, Viterra hit a major milestone after surpassing five million tonnes of growers’ grain loaded onto vessels from our South Australian ports bound for international markets for the 2022/23 harvest.

Viterra General Manager Supply Chain, Derek Robjohns says to achieve this, Viterra has broken another record for the harvest and loaded more grain onto vessels in six months than ever before.

“We loaded over 5.1 million tonnes onto ships from December to May, achieving our highest shipment volume within a six month timeframe,” Derek says.

“This included our biggest month of shipping ever when we loaded over 900,000 tonnes onto vessels in March.”

Viterra is focussed on moving as much grain as possible to end users in the first half of the year when prices are at a premium.

“We’re working hard to connect millions of tonnes of growers’ grain with end use markets when demand is at its highest before the Northern Hemisphere harvest begins.

“Surpassing our previous six month shipping record of 4.8 million tonnes, set in 2012, by around 300,000 tonnes is a huge bonus for our grower customers and we are proud to have delivered this for them.”

Derek says it’s an amazing achievement to have already exported such a large percentage of the bumper season’s grain.

“Breaking this record has been a tremendous effort by our employees,” Derek says.

“Constant teamwork across our whole business is required to keep our supply chain running safely and efficiently and satisfy the demand for local growers’ grain from the Viterra network.

“It also relies on our road and rail logistics providers who are doing a great job running at full capacity to help us move grain from our upcountry sites to port, of which we have moved over 3 million tonnes so far.”

New season shipping capacity bookings positive for SA growers

In May, Viterra also saw an extremely positive response from its export customers wanting to book additional shipping capacity for the 2023/24 harvest.

Derek says exporters booked almost 1.2 million tonnes of extra capacity for the upcoming season, boosting the tonnes already booked.

“When we released our long-term shipping capacity before the 2022/23 harvest, exporters requested to book over 27 million tonnes over five-years which included five million tonnes for the 2023/24 harvest,” Derek says.

“With the latest release, we now have over 6 million tonnes of shipping capacity already booked heading into the new season.

“This is a fantastic result for our grower customers and gives them reassurance that exporters are ready to buy the grain they deliver to us this coming harvest."

Disclaimer
* This data is subject to variation due to individual site operations and the timing of reports.
** The total 2022/23 data includes grain received into Viterra’s storage and handling network since 10 October 2022.