Marketing & Trading overview

The purchasing of grain is the first step in the Marketing and Trading (M&T) supply chain and lies at the heart of CBH’s strategy. The focus of the Accumulations team is to provide products and services which allow efficient and timely accumulation of grain and accurate payments to growers.

Our network of regionally-based Business Relationship Managers (BRMs) maintain and build relationships with Western Australian and South Australian growers and provide valuable feedback to the CBH business. Our goal is to be the trusted advisor and long-term partner of growers in WA and SA. We do this by understanding our grower’s business requirements and developing products that provide value: buying grain, providing grain marketing and finance products, and selling fertiliser. We build and maintain grower relationships through solid business support, regular communication, sharing information about our products, listening and responding to grower needs.

CBH Fertiliser delivers high quality, low cost and on-time fertiliser to the benefit of WA growers. By operating a low-cost model, we can deliver the lowest price fertiliser to WA growers to maintain their competitive place at a cost-per-hectare basis. The team successfully procures quality granular fertiliser from AQIS Level 1 producers from around the globe which is suited to Western Australian soils.

Marketing and Trading have developed products to meet the diverse needs of our growers. Our product suite is broadly split into three areas:

1. Grain Marketing Products: Cash and Pool 
2. Grower Finance: Pre-pay Advantage
3. Grower Price Risk Management: Swaptions 

Our International Marketing and Trading teams market, and sell Australian grain to international and domestic customers.

Together they are responsible for buying, selling and shipping about 50% of the Western Australian and about 10-15% of the South Australian crop with the purpose of driving a competitive market and helping growers to achieve maximum value for their grain.

Marketing and Trading offers a chartering and shipping service, with a team responsible for safely delivering the right cargo to the right place, at the right time, in the most cost-effective way possible. The team aims to provide competitive freight rates and be a charterer of choice in the freight market. We undertake grain freight of more than six million tonnes per annum across 135 vessels. We manage handysize to post-Panamax vessel shipments from Australia, USA, Canada, South America and Europe to key grain markets in the Middle East, Europe and Asia.

Our team undertakes regular visits to our international customers as well as hosting delegations here in Western Australia for crop tours and farm visits. With travel restrictions in place throughout the COVID-19 pandemic, we found creative ways to keep our customers informed and engaged using technology to conduct virtual crop tours, customer webinars and stakeholder meetings.

Marketing and Trading has taken steps to respond to customer demand for sustainably produced products, starting with the expansion of the successful International Sustainability and Carbon Certification (ISCC) scheme which was implemented in 2010 to sell Australian canola into the European Union (EU) biofuel market. Learn more about CBH’s efforts to encourage production of sustainable grain here.