Pulse containers paying off in Esperance

Back in 2016, EQG owner Neil Wandel made moves to establish a containerised grain service.

At the time he believed growers on the south coast could save between $40-$45 per tonne on freight costs for pulse crops and milling oats, which historically had to be sent to Perth for packing and shipping from Fremantle, by exporting them direct from Esperance port.

It is now less than a year since EQG carried out its first ever shipment in May 2018 and owner Neil Wandel said they have since done a shipment every month but one since then.

"Since December we have been sending out 2000 tonnes or 80 boxes of pulses every month and this looks like it will continue through until May or June this year," Mr Wandel said.

The containers are sent out on vessels that come into Esperance port to pick up nickel, and EQG piggy backs its shipments onto those vessels.

Mr Wandel said it was working well at the moment, although some months they have enough orders to send a shipment every two weeks.

Originally a grain cleaning and drying facility only, EQG moved into container exporting to fully utilise its Esperance facility, given it was only working three months of the year over harvest.

"We had all the infrastructure, so we thought we would look at other options that would enable us to utilise the plant all year round, while still carrying out cleaning and drying grain," Mr Wandel said.

EQG decided to move into the containerised grain business and applied for and was successful in receiving a grant through the Agribusiness Innovation Fund, which was developed to promote scale, efficiency and innovation along supply and value chains in order to enhance competitiveness and encourage growth in new markets.

"Through that fund we received a grant for $90,000 and this really enabled us to get things started," Mr Wandel said.

"It was only a small part of the overall cost of setting things up, but it assisted us to do some training and development and cover some up-front fumigation costs.

"It was certainly helpful and without it we probably wouldn't have got going."

EQG's first sale was to China and came about when a group of growers from Esperance were there on a SEPWA barley trip.

They had dinner with a Chinese grain buyer who said he wasn't going to buy peas out of WA because they were "all rubbish".

"The growers came back and reported that to me and so I got in contact with him," Mr Wandel said.

"We did a shipment and I flew up there and met with them when it arrived and since then we have done seven shipments to them.

"So we initially started there and now have developed relationships with several extremely good brokers and customers.

"We now have repeat customers in China, Penang, Bangladesh, India, Sri Lanka and Egypt."

A move back into legume-based rotations in the Esperance district has also provided a boost for the business.

According to the Grain Industry Association of WA February 2019 crop report, of the 33,000 tonnes of pulses grown in WA, 25,000t were grown in Esperance.

Mr Wandel feels this will only increase in the future.

"This year those people that didn't have a legume in their system and just ran a wheat-canola rotation, were finding the protein level in their wheat was terrible," he said.

"Most growers are going to want to do something about that, whether it is growing pulses or bringing lupins or serradella into the equation."

Mr Wandel was a founding member of the Pulse Association of the South East (PASE) which was a grower-driven group established in the early 1990s and he still works in with the association through EQG.

This group has provided some solid data around growing pulses in Esperance and with growers now looking for any edge to increase yield and quality, it seems there will be a return to pulses for many.

"Esperance grew up to 70,000t of pulses at one point and then canola took over, but I think there is potential for it to get up to that level again," Mr Wandel said.

"Lentils are proving very successful through the medium rainfall country and people are finding they can grow faba beans on a wider range of soil types than they thought they could.

"Faba beans have had a bad rap in the past, but farmers are better at growing them and there are better varieties now and a better tolerance to disease.

"Faba beans hit $900 a tonne last year and were certainly the winner in gross margins for a lot of growers in this area.

"That will change when we hit July as the new season crops start in the northern hemisphere.

"The only thing we are finding hard to move is lentils - they have been slow.

"Canada has a big crop and there is still quite a lot of old stock available on the east coast."

Mr Wandel said while the business has started off in a small way, they have concentrated on shipping the right quality for the right orders.

"Everything we pack is cleaned, regardless of quality and this is quite unique in the industry," he said.

"The aim is to really raise the quality of what we are producing by ensuring that everything is cleaned and customers are responding to this with price premiums."

With the aim of providing the best quality product possible, all produce is also independently tested, which has also thrown up some interesting results.

"This has probably uncovered our biggest issue in that what we thought were good quality legumes aren't showing up that way in the independent tests," Mr Wandel said.

"Especially on the beans and lentils, they are just falling short of making top grade.

"This can be due to seasonal conditions or time of spray-topping affecting the quality, but it is enabling us to educate ourselves and growers to improve the quality of what is being produced down here and we are working in with PASE on this.

"It is a bit of discovery from everyone, because it is really the first time we have had that hard, sharp feedback."

EQG has grown to now employ eight full-time staff and Mr Wandel is looking at expanding capacity this year.

"The limiting factor is fumigation but we are looking at putting in another 1000t of storage, plus a bulk storage facility that would potentially increase capacity by another 5000t," he said.