Fengrain and Frontier to create new grain trading partnership for the future

The Board of Directors of Fengrain Limited have agreed to enter into exclusive negotiations with Frontier Agriculture Limited over the subcontract of the grain trading and grain marketing activities previously carried out by Fengrain Services Limited.

Fengrain’s grain storage and grain handling activities, carried out by Fengrain Limited, will remain under the ownership of its existing farmer members.

Speaking about the Board’s decision, Fengrain Chairman Paul Wilkinson was positive about the way forward: “Global and domestic markets remain volatile and unstable making grain trading increasingly more challenging. By concentrating on our core storage activities we can subcontract our grain trading and marketing to Frontier which has the scale and financial capacity to  trade through market volatility to the benefit of their grain marketing customers. I am excited by this new business model which I believe will add value to our members and serve all our stakeholders well into the future.”It is the Fengrain Board’s intention to report on the outcome of these negotiations and to communicate full details of the new arrangements to Members by mid February 2019. It is anticipated that grant of the subcontract will take place no later than the 31st March 2019.

Mark Aitchison, MD of Frontier was pleased to have reached agreement: “Frontier has a well proven track record of providing grain marketing, risk management and grain trading services to farmer-owned grain businesses. “With our complete understanding of the farm gate and our wide access to upstream markets we can bring something unique to Fengrain members and farmer customers – helping to maximise their grain marketing performance and protecting their storage investments.”