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Grain trading

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Berwick-upon-Tweed
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Over the years, our grain trading team have developed strong links with both farmers and end users, which includes our malting division Simpsons Malt.

This gives us extensive knowledge on both aspects of the market, helping you to market your grain safe in the knowledge that you are growing to a required specification.

Take a look at the perks and services we can offer to meet your requirements.

Combinable crop trading

While malting barley comprises a significant percentage of harvest purchases for in-house use at Simpsons Malt, we have also developed a very successful trading business for other commodities, including wheat, feed barley, oats and oil seed rape.

Wheat goes to excellent relationships we have with end users of biscuit wheat, distilling wheat and food compounders, feed barley to feed compounders, oats to oat mills and oilseed rape to oilseed rape crushers.

This has earned us the reputation of being a reliable, innovative, and professional business partner throughout our trading area, which stretches from the Highlands of Scotland to North Yorkshire.

Trading options

We can provide a range of marketing and contract options that can be tailored to suit your requirements.

We offer long-term purchase contracts for malting barley and wheat, working closely with you to advise on specifications and helping you to meet them. This contract ensures a secure home for a known timeframe.

For some growers, a short-term agreement is preferred. For some commodities, we can offer spot contracts enabling varied tonnages to be committed throughout different months, priced at current market values.

Wheat pool marketing is another alternative, committing a tonnage for a specified period of time, which is then marketed by us.

We have a depth of knowledge on the futures markets, which allow commodities to be traded on contracts with predetermined prices and delivery dates in the future.

With all these marketing options, we can provide farmers with tailored financing solutions to accommodate a range of cash flow requirements and risk profiles.

Growers Groups

Most of the malting barley procured each harvest – more than 400,000 tonnes – has the destined market of Simpsons Malt, our malting division. Simpsons Malt is renowned for its high-quality malts and supplies some of the world’s leading breweries and distilleries.

With visibility throughout the supply chain – from seed to bottle – we have been able to launch Growers Groups. In these, distilleries know which of our customers have grown the barley to make their malt, with each distillery’s barley stored and malted separately.

As well as the traceability benefits this has for both the farmer and end user, it has provided opportunities for our customers to visit the distillery they grow barley for and build positive, long-term relationships.

  • "We're really pleased to be involved in a local supply chain collaboration with Simpsons Malt and The Borders Distillery and it gives us a great sense of pride to know that the work we put in throughout the year is rewarded with some of our barley going into some fantastic local products."

    Andy Baird, Harpertoun Farm, Scottish Borders - Part of The Borders Distillery Growers Group

Integrated supply chain

As a supplier of farm inputs and with a team of BASIS and FACTS qualified Farm Traders, in most cases our contact with growers starts before the seed is in the ground.

This is important as it allows us the opportunity to advise on all aspects of crop growth, where we can conduct analysis, provide feedback on processes and offer bespoke crop nutrition and crop protection recommendations.

Due to our strong relationships with end users, we know what it takes to meet their quality standards. We work with consumers to fully understand their business needs, and then work with farmers to achieve this.

Haulage & storage

Post-harvest, our integrated supply chain continues with our haulage and storage services.

We manage a fleet of 30 wagons and work with trusted haulage partners to ensure the swift collection of your cereal crops, with the majority of our fleet running on sustainable HVO fuel.

We also have an extensive grain storage infrastructure, comprising more than 450,000 tonnes, ranging from Keith in the Highlands of Scotland to Craigswalls in the Scottish Borders.

All grain stores have a laboratory and all wagon loads are quality tested upon arrival, guaranteeing that the grains meet the required specification before being stored and then transported to the consumer.

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