Dear John & all at Woldgrain,
“Thanks to you and your team and your excellent hauliers. You’ve made harvest easy and probably kept us viable as smaller farmers. Yes the service comes at a cost, as does everything, but it’s paid for itself several times over in quality uplift and in not having our hands forced as partial early sellers to clear our own inadequate storage space. 115 tonnes of wheat consigned from here today and within an hour I have a statement of exact tonnage available for me to market at a time of my choosing with no further effort required from ourselves other than picking up the phone. Brilliant. Wish we’d joined years ago.”
J.P
Thank you...
Dear John,
Thank you very much for your kind invite to share in your post harvest celebration, it was a great night and good to see all those involved with Woldgrain in a less formal environment.
My main reason for emailing is to pass on my thanks for the season, I am slightly disappointed that I did not say anything on the night but thought that is was maybe not my place to interfere with proceedings.
The whole experience of dealing with Woldgrain this year has been a very positive one. As you well know we are not the most straight forward of businesses having 10 farms running through one office but all keeping their own identities. Despite all this there has been very few complications and this is down to the staff at Woldgrain who have gone out of their way to make it work. From the pre harvest visits from Dan to get an idea of all the loading points to the work Nikki put in to getting the Blackcat system working so as we could view all our samples from one log in. Whenever I have visited the lab during harvest (usually on the scrounge for a moisture check) the lab staff have been excellent and the atmosphere was of extremely busy but very enjoyable. The text system letting us know what loads had been sampled kept us informed of the quality of what we were combining and we could then decide to change variety or continue as planned. By keeping you informed of what our plans were in advance it allowed you to keep crop moving off farm which logistically was a must for us to keep combines rolling. All the drivers I met were polite and helpful and were integral to system working.
Once again could you please pass our thanks on to all the Woldgrain team and congratulate them on making what could have been a very difficult harvest for both parties who have gone through significant change, into a rather smooth one as far as crop movements go.
Jim and James Beeden – Flagleaf Farming – Welton
£1 spent on drying and cleaning the grain added at least £2...
We started cutting an 80ac block of milling wheat on the 12th of August. We finished it on the 23rd September at an appalling moisture, but at least we got it in. The grain “looked” fairly nice, and tests in the lab at Woldgrain showed that it would make full milling spec……if it wasn’t 25.1% moisture and 66kg bushel weight. I spoke with Lindsay and we agreed to have it go through their drying setup. Woldgrain removed almost 10t of water from my grain, but turned corn that wouldn’t come out of the back of our trailer without help (let alone flow through our on-farm drier) into grain that tested at 76+kg, 14% protein & moisture and high hagbergs. I would estimate that every £1 we spent on drying and cleaning the grain has added at least £2 of value,and turned a heap of unsalable mush into a much sought after pile of UK milling wheat.
Initially I was very sceptical of sending grain to Woldgrain, despite it being on my doorstep. Now I wouldn’t consider storing milling wheat on my own farm. Every year things just get that bit better. All things considered, I don’t think I can cart, dry, condition, store and handle any premium crops on-farm for the money we pay for Woldgrain to do it.Woldgrain provided a very good collection service
Woldgrain this year provided a very good collection service for my grain. In the difficulties of the 2012 harvest knowing that lorries where ready to collect the grain as soon as it was harvested was a great reassurance. The fact that they where willing and able to send enough lorries to keep up with the output of my two big combines meant we could keep cutting and not have to compromise harvest output.
Terry Metson – Farm Manager Leverton Farms Ltd.
Woldgrain service is second to none
Adrian Morrell – Head of Stores Services
Tenant farmer increases yield
Also I hope to purchase more tonnage in the future as I wish to phase out the use of a low store on the farm. It is inconvenient as trailers cannot be tipped to the full height, it is labour intensive and quite unhealthy because of dust and too slow to fill and cannot keep up with output of modern combine. It is also in the village and close to houses giving noise annoyance.
I do not have any livestock on the farm at the moment but believe that because of the need for traceability it will become unacceptable to store grain temporarily in a livestock building or use equipment which is also used for livestock management thus more livestock farmers will need to buy into Woldgrain.
In our farm stores blending of the grain is impossible whereas at Woldgrain it is easy and future facilities will give many more opportunities for adding value and opening up greater possibilities of contracts with end users for grain of a certain known specification.
This gives me a definite advantage over other farmers on farm storage as does the ability to reduce costs with economy of scale and increase the ability to employ good and efficient staff which is vital to any successful business.
To summarise we hope to increase our tonnage share as we expect to expand acreages and yields of crops. Woldgrain can give us so many benefits and efficiencies that we cannot achieve on the farm or with ex farm sales and as tenants my son and I will be able to sell our tonnage on retirement for a fair market price rather than have the value revert to the landlord. The expansion of Woldgrain and building of facilities for a further 26,000 tonnes is very important for the future of our farm business and equally important for many farmers in the area. I do not hesitate to support the grant application.
Yours sincerely
Michael Anyan – Springthorpe
Tascc registered store
Richard Milligan-Manby
Economies of scale really do add up!
For years I had very little tonnage at Woldgrain and I believe many members used the store for their over spill and smaller commodities they couldn’t easily accommodate on their own farms. However, over the years this has changed.
From around 18,000 Tonnes in a very small space time Woldgrain is now capable of handling over 60,000. Not only does it manage this but it does it much better than before, with far quicker intake times. This is essential at harvest when time is at a premium. Large amounts of corn can be removed from the farm in a very short space of time. On top of this the hauliers are a lot happier which again helps how the store is seen from the outside.
The economics of this can already be seen in that the store charges per tonne are now only a fraction of previous levels. These savings will increase further if the store expands to its current vision of over 80,000 Tonnes.
With increased tonnage also comes improvements in infrastructure such as dryers and cleaners. In a year such as this it has made big improvements to the bushel weights of the wheat and in so doing reduces enormously the deductions made on specific weights. This money is collected by the store and of course is then effectively the member’s money, either distributed or helping to build up the balance sheet.
Further improvements needed will be the laboratory and weigh bridges. As with all successful operations, it is difficult to get everything to grow at the same pace and in Woldgrains’ case it is now these items that are the weak link and need upgrading.
Grant aid was one of the main drivers in the original expansion and this has been used extremely well. Further grant aiding would be helpful to carry on the vision to help complete Woldgrains’ existing plans and so aid all its existing and hopefully new members.
Fred H Myers – Company Director – Leverton Farms Ltd
Central Storage Proves Beneficial
R J Sanderson – Head of Central Store Development OPENFIELD