Big ship to North Africa rounds off successful 2007-8 grain export campaign

Leading exporters Gleadell Agriculture rounded off a successful 2007-8 campaign with the MV Elisabeth Bolten loading 12,000mt of ukp branded milling wheat bound for Algeria from the company's Immingham facility.

"Gleadell have exported 25% of the UK's exportable surplus of wheat this season to our traditional markets, such as Spain, Portugal and Ireland, as well as to new markets in north Africa such as Algeria and Morocco," said David Sheppard, Gleadell's managing director. "We have also developed other new markets for UK wheat this season, including Norway, and have exported significant tonnages of oilseed rape, beans and feed barley."

Marc Rogerson, the company's milling wheat trader, commented, "The Algerian market has been a hard nut to crack for the UK, with France or Germany being the leading suppliers. However, with this recent cargo, we have supplied milling wheat that not only tests well but will do the job in their flour mills. We expect more enquiries in the coming season."

Mr Sheppard added: "We have given our cereal growers a choice of outlets, with our exports going from our own facilities at Immingham and Grimsby, as well as Lowestoft and Ipswich. Also, with our southern office now up and running, we had our first south coast shipment out of Dover, sold to our shareholders AC Toepfer International and shipped to the Moroccan market. The success of this year's campaign augurs well for next year when we are likely to be looking at an exportable surplus of around 3.0 mln/t of wheat."