CBH chairman Wally Newman has shrugged off claims of a leadership challenge this year following the co-operative's annual general meeting held in Perth last Tuesday.
"We have a really good team, everyone's happy, we are getting a lot of runs on the board and we've done a lot of work that growers will see the benefits of in the next 12-24 months," Mr Newman said.
The meeting focused on the results of the 2015-16 year, which saw CBH deliver a pre-rebate surplus of $110.2 million and rebates to growers totalling $62.7m.
It was a marked contrast from last year's firey meeting were growers fiercely debated the merits of the corporatisation bid by Australian Grains Champion.
More than 150 people attended this year's CBH member-only meeting and pre-meeting which provided operational, marketing and trading and investment updates, a change to the standard AGM format, Mr Newman said.
"Having our business managers present on marketing and trading, investments and a range of topics during the day gave members the opportunity to ask questions and get information that they wouldn't normally get at an AGM," he said.
CBH chief executive officer Andy Crane said top issues discussed at the forums included operational matters such as bin closures during harvest, rail access, carryover grain, grower rebates and the performance of CBH's investments.
Dr Crane said a direct comparison of CBH's storage and handling fees to those paid by growers on the east coast showed CBH members paid $10-12 per tonne less in fees.
However, the company was determined to beat industry benchmarks.
"Because our growers have decided they want to own and run the supply chain themselves and keep it as a single supply chain then we should challenge ourselves to go even better than that," he said.
"When we you have the benefit of running the entire chain I should start to set target that are beyond industry benchmarks."
Supply chain costs were "front of mind" for Dr Crane as the Australian grains industry faced strong competition from other markets such as the Black Sea.
"We have been some of the leaders in raising this subject and the challenges of new origins with efficient supply chains and the impact of Australia's competitiveness in the South East Asian market," he said.
"That's why we are so passionate about improving price, access and service we get for the rail and how concerned we are that port infrastructure is free and open to access.
"We support the government in negotiations on trade access and preferential free trade agreements and work with them to ensure our growers have every possible advantage and open supply chains into those markets in our backyard because there are real challenges."
In the 2015-16 financial year, tough trading conditions saw Interflour make a $300,000 contribution to CBH which it has a 50 per cent stake in while CBH Fertilisers reported a loss of $1.7m and Blue Lake Milling (BLM) a profit of $2.4m.
However, both Mr Newman and Dr Crane were upbeat on the co-operative's investment in Interflour and BLM.
Mr Newman said following the past three years where rebates from Interflour were withheld as the company was in an "expansion phase", he expected the return on this investment to improve as a new malt house came into production this year and from a new flour mill in the Philippines, which is under construction.
"The best thing about being invested in South East Asia is that the market demand grows every year and grows by percentages that we can only envy in Australia," Dr Crane said.
"The market demand will absorbs capacity that has come on and then we'll see those margins improve.
"BLM is looking very good the past two years has been tough for them because the price of oats have been $400/t plus and they have found it hard to make the margin, but they still made a very positive contribution to the rebates and going forward we expect that to be a very lucrative part of our investments," Mr Newman said.
"We've got to look at what is going to give growers the best return on their investment and there is no doubt that there are margins we can make on oats - it is a known field and there is a growing demand for it."
Dr Crane said the CBH board and management had received "a number" of questions from growers about rebates.
CBH paid a record rebate to growers in October for the 2015-16 year of $4.20/t, prompting some to question whether they were being overcharged on storage and handling costs to deliver the rebate.
"We set the fees at the lowest level we can to keep the business sustainable but when we have a run of big crops like we have, we have the mechanism within the co-operative to rebate charges to growers and ensure those funds are their's now or in the following year," Dr Crane said.
Due to big harvests over the past four years, carryover grain was a hot topic for growers.
For the 2015-16 harvest, 13.6mt was delivered to CBH, following from the previous year's harvest of 13.6mt and a record harvest of 15.9mt in 2013-14, which was beaten by the 2016-17 harvest of 16.8mt.
Dr Crane said the co-operative had ensured there was minimal impact from carryover grain, with just under 1mt carried over from the 2014-15 harvest.
He said despite last year's record harvest, carryover at the end of this year "would not be a problem".
"Of course things can change but our aim is to really push tonnes down the supply chain and onto ships whenever the marketers want to ship," he said.
"It's good for our growers, it encourages marketers to come and trust us as a reliable origin of grain and it also gets the grain out ready for next year because we need to clear the decks for what is hopefully another big crop."
Rod Madden and Vern Dempster were re-appointed to the board on the back of recent grower member elections, with members also ratifying the board's decision to retain independent director David Willis.
Following the meeting Dr Crane announced that CBH had extended its partnership with the Royal Flying Doctor Service (RFDS) and increased its funding commitment to a three-year agreement in 2014 worth $300,000 for another five years and a further $750,000, redirecting funds from air strip surveys into the Aero Medical Fund.
