CENTAUR Grain, the UK's largest farmer-owned committed grain marketing business, and Groupe Soufflet, France's largest private grain collector and processor, have entered into a supply chain management partnership in the UK.
Centaur has agreed to buy Soufflet Agriculture, sited at Southampton and Bury St Edmunds, which handles up to 500,000 tonnes of ex-farm procurement annually and markets up to 1.5m tonnes of UK grains, oilseeds and pulses.
The alliance intends to secure export markets directly to consumers for UK cereals, oilseeds and pulses.
The agreement also secures long-term access to port facilities owned by Soufflet's parent company, SGT, at Southampton, which has handled significant tonnages produced by Centaur members for many years.
Soufflet is the world's largest maltster, one of Europe's largest millers and a significant consumer of cereals. French-owned, the company holds strong strategic positions in the UK commercial oilseed rape and EU non-food crop sectors and buys about 15pc of the cereals produced by Centaur's members.
Centaur is owned by its 1,300 farmer members, who produce more than 1.5m tonnes of grain annually. It has offices at Andover in Hampshire, Boston in Lincolnshire and at Aylsham in Norfolk.
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