Gleadell Agriculture has cemented its position as the UK’s leading grain exporter, accounting for 50% of the wheat tonnage that was shipped abroad this season.

It is an unprecedented percentage and is especially impressive given the appalling quality of the UK wheat crop, a legacy of the wettest summer in living memory, says Gleadell managing director David Sheppard.

“The 2012 harvest resulted in a low yielding and extremely poor quality wheat crop,” says Mr Sheppard. “Some domestic compounders could deal with wheat as low as 65kg/hl, and until it closed one of the bioethanol plants could accept wheat as low as 60kg/hl. But that still left a significant amount of poor quality grain to find a home.”

Despite this poor quality, Gleadell will have shipped around 300,000t of wheat since last harvest, he notes. The main destinations were within the EU where blending opportunities were available with better quality wheat from other origins.

“It was a significant challenge, but with help from our shareholders, Toepfer International and InVivo, Gleadell’s export programme succeeded in clearing this tonnage through our facilities at Immingham, Great Yarmouth, Dover, Southampton and Avonmouth,” says Mr Sheppard.

“Exporting such a tonnage of low grade wheat was a key function in a UK market where, as it has turned out, we have probably over-imported as a nation. Old crop prices have collapsed to a situation where July 13 Liffe wheat futures have traded £66/t below the contract high seen earlier in the season.

“Had this surplus still been overhanging the market, the fall could have been even more dramatic.”

Ongoing investment in its export facilities is a key factor in Gleadell’s success, including the £5m investment in its storage and shipping facility at Great Yarmouth in 2009/10, says Mr Sheppard.

Gleadell has shipped more than 500,000t from the port since the facility opened. It now provides East Anglian farmers with a route to market on vessels up to 25,000mt previously only accessible from the Thames or the Humber on the east coast, and is the one of the few portside stores that can also dry crops.