Heading home - day fourteen

Up this morning for a big breakfast together at our hotel in Hong Kong to celebrate Natalie and Gary's birthdays - and get some sustenance into us before the seven hour flight home to Perth.

After breakfast we managed to squeeze in a couple of hours checking out the city of Hong Kong before piling (literally) onto a minibus with our suitcases for the 40min drive to the airport.

The airport security following the Malaysian Airlines flight mystery has been very tight, so it took us a while to get through immigration and security and make our way to the gate for a final group debrief of the trip.

The things we have learnt and the customers we have met have expanded our understanding of our industry and the enormity and importance of what happens to our grain when it leaves our shores bound for markets in desperate need of food security.

Our insights and experiences will be at the forefront of conversation over the next few months - so if you know any of us who were lucky enough to join the trip we look forward to sharing it with you. We will also try not to bore you with some of the thousands of photos taken along the way!

We have made some amazing new friends, not just in the group, but Ted and the team from Zennoh as well as Wallace in China and the Interflour Vietnam team who we will never forget. Thank you to everyone we have met for your hospitality and we hope to return the favor when you visit Perth one day.

The close friendships formed within our group will also live on - with reunions already being planned for locations around the State.

No doubt we will reflect on this trip constantly over the next few weeks, so will continue to update the blog should anything come to mind.

Thanks to CBH Group for allowing us to participate and learn, we are so grateful for the opportunity - and to our readers for following our trip on this blog!

Last full day on tour - day thirteen

Today is our last day on tour, which thankfully for everyone was a rest day.

After a big night on the town celebrating the last two weeks we all had a well deserved sleep in. 

A few people took off for a quick city tour to catch the historical sights of Ho Chi Minh City including the palace and the museum, which was quite the eye opener and a very sad reminder of what happened here not so long ago. 

Most people managed to squeeze in a $10 per hour massage and check out the shops before winding back up at the hotel for a 4pm shuttle to the airport. 

The flight to Hong Kong was not as smooth as we would have liked and we were quite happy to land in Hong Kong. 

We made it to the hotel by around 1am after experiencing some late night road rage from our minibus driver.

Off to sleep for an 8:30am breakfast..... one leg left then home. 

Here are a few photos from today.

Interflour facility tour - day twelve

Today's blog was written by grower Chris Syme from Cunderdin.

We left the hotel in inner Ho Chi Minh City at 9.30 am all ready to travel the 70km to the Interflour mill and wharf facilities at Cai Mep Agri Port.

The drive out entailed travelling on typical city streets with locals on motor bikes, push bikes, small trucks and taxis.

After travelling 40 minutes we entered a new motor freeway. Not a lot of local traffic as the toll fee may be to expense for the locals. We found it slightly strange that on the expressway the speed limit was only 40km.

We passed farmland with water buffalo grazing, rice harvesting and construction sites.

We arrived at 11.00 am to a very impressive modern flour mill. Outside on the flag pole were 4 flags, which represented the financial interests, Australian (CBH), Japan, Indonesia and Vietnam the country located.

We meet with Houm, who has worked with Interflour for 7 years.

The flour mill site is 32has including the wharf. There is room for the malting plant to be built in the next year and we are taken over to view the site and see the plans. 

We were treated to lunch at the staff canteen, and served bread made in the test laboratory which was still warm and fluffy.

We had a tour of the facility - very warm day to be inside the mill, we thought around 37-40c with around 90% humidity, so it was quite a sweaty walk.

The wharf has a unloading turnaround of 3-4 days with a grain or feed ship in every week. The grain can be unloaded at 1,200 tonne an hour using a screw auger. The wharf also out loads feed into 500 tonne barges to delivery to smaller ports which can't handle the Panamax 75,000 tonne loads.

Unloading from incoming ships in the wharf is 1,200 tonne per hour. With 20,000 tonne in storage currently. The mill runs 7 days a week, 24 hours a day and out loads 600-800 tonne of flour a day. 

Interflour has a staff of 430 with 250 working at the Vietnam site. Average wages in Vietnam are US$102 a month but staff at Interflour are paid three times above the average and are provided many benefits.

To mill flour, wheat needs to be softened and moisture levels need to be at 14%, so water is added.

The milling process is to blend different grades of wheat, clean, grind, and separate until flour meets milling specs. Normally you get 750kgs flour from 1 tonne of wheat. The bran is sold to feed and other markets.

We were all very surprised to see the amount of sand and stones removed from wheat in the cleaning process. 

High end flours are in 25kg paper bags, most other in 25 kg poly bags and bulk tankers of 23 tonne for bigger customers.

We travelled back to Ho Chi Minh City in the afternoon, some had a swim to wash away the warm humid day and then we all went out to dinner to celebrate our last full night together on the grower trip.

Baking bread with our grain - day twelve

Today's blog is written by Andrew Nixon from Moora.

Day started at 5am with a 5.30am departure to Vietnam. Most of us spent the 2.5hr flight sleeping to try and catch up from the late night before.

Ho Chi Minh airport was surprisingly clean and well organised. The traffic was busy crazy and totally random, with the bus constantly surrounded by a swarm of out of control motorbikes using both the road and the footpath and carrying entire families at once.

The driver had the local radio station playing - which is not recommended for extended periods.

As we approached our destination in the centre of the city we were overwhelmed by the beauty of the French architecture.

We then followed Sophie, one of the CBH staff on the trip to the money exchange around the corner. 

Some changed money while others contended with the crowds on the footpath. It is the first time I have witnessed a show shine boy, shine someone's shoes while they were practically walking down the street.

We had lunch at a local restaurant - best $3.50 I have ever spent. We had Pho Bo, rare beef noodle soup, Goi Con, Vietnamese rice rolls, a drink and a creme caramel.

We found there has been a stark contrast between each place we have visited, it has been interesting seeing and hearing the differences between the consumers and the final products in each country.

Some had a quick swim at the pool, while some managed to catch up on a little more sleep before heading over to the Interflour office around 10 mins drive away.

There we met Master Baker David Broutin who immediately handed out some fresh baked coffee rolls to curb our hunger and get us ready for the baking session we were about to do. 

Over the next few hours we attempted to bake three types of bread, a Vietnamese baguette a Banh Mi, the coffee roll and a sponge Swiss roll.

I should include a disclaimer in here to say that my wife should not have high expectations about my baking abilities when I get home........ I'm sure the same applies to the rest of the group!

David operates the Interflour training facility to teach local bakers how to use the products.

The training facility for Interflour is locales at the head office in town, however the testing laboratory is over at the Cai Mep Port Facility which we will see tomorrow. 

Interflour now supply to Burger King, McDonalds And a lot of change has occurred since 2000, fast food companies arrived in Vietnam so tastes for local breads have changed. People now prefer sweeter breads, not sourdough or salty bread like in Australia.

We were then privileged to meet the CEO of Interflour Danny Hoe, who preceded to give us a great perspective from the senior managers on the history of Interflour and it's great potential in the future. 

In my opinion Interflour is a great diversified asset for the CBH Group.

We were lucky enough to have dinner with the Interflour team on the rooftop of the Quan Bui restaurant where we took discussions further.

Recipe for the Banh Mi roll (which was delicious)

Ingredients:

1 baguette or French stick

Few sprigs of fresh coriander

Cucumber

Sweet chilli sauce

Fresh chilli

Duck liver pate or similar 

Thinly sliced pork or beef 

Soy sauce

Finely sliced spring onion

Method: 

Pile it all into roll and eat it!

Wilmar flour and Ranick Oats - day eleven

Today's blog is written by grower Phil Mincherton from Balidu.

After squeezing three tonne of luggage and bodies into a two tonne school bus we headed north again. 

The skyline was full of massive new high rise units, some still under construction. We travelled across a bridge about 10km plus long - with the smog we couldn't even see the end of the bridge.

With the little Tojo finally on the open freeway our driver put the pedal to the metal for a 1.5hr drive to the Wilmar flour mill, we were above ground level for the entire trip just about.

We had a very productive meeting with the Wilmar team here in China. We talked about their requirements for different grades of wheat and had a long discussion about the problems they have experienced.

We were then taken on a very comprehensive tour of the mill - especially the testing laboratory, followed by a workers lunch provided by the company.

On the road again to Dongguan town with a mandatory stop for coffee to perk us up before the next meeting. Our bus driver even had to ask the local cops for directions!

Next was a meeting at the Ranick Food Company oat importing, processing and packaging plant. The management gave a presentation about their facilities where we learnt that Ranick use around 95% Australian oats for their products. 

We were shown around the plant and saw the entire milling process including the drying rooms and packaging warehouse where there were machines automatically packing Quaker oats in one room and a group of ladies packing local brand oats in the other. 

We were impressed by the hygiene standards at Ranick, we were asked to cover our shoes and wear dust jackets and caps for the tour and went through chambers to remove the dirt and dust.

The company gave us show bags which due to luggage space we were unable to accept. 

Later that afternoon we headed for Hong Kong. Weather conditions are as they have been for several days now - grey, with what appears to be pollution. 

We were dropped at the port terminal and walked through China customs, after a brisk walk across a bridge over the river we arrived at Hong Kong customs.

We found the train to the city and after 45min journey said goodbye to Wallace, our trusted (and good value) guide from CBH (Hong Kong office) who was off home to have dinner with his family.

We were left to our own devices tonight as we have a very early flight to Vietnam in the morning. 

SDL Supertime malt house - day ten

Today's blog was written by grower Gary Walter from Cascade.

After a fantastic nights sleep in another great hotel it was a delayed start to the day with the bus running a little behind schedule. We toured back through the city viewing the stark contrast between the old centre of Guangzhou and the new on our way towards the SDL Guangzhou malt house.

We were met by Raymann Zhang, the Deputy General Manager of the Supertime malting company who gave us very detailed information on SDL and their malting operations.

SDL malt house is state owned under the banner of Guangzhou Holdings. The malt house has the capacity to produce 800,000 tonne of malt per annum which makes up 25% of China's market. This makes them the six largest maltster's in the world behind Malterup, Sourflett and Cargill the top three.

They were the first commercial malting company in China with production starting in 1989. SDL purchase about 900,000 tonne of barley each year with about 500,000 tonne coming from Australia.

CBH Group has been supplying barley to SDL for at least 15 years. They see Western Australian barley as preferable due to the 13-15 day freight journey compared to Canada's 19-21 day trip, as well as the ease of information, logistics and stability of supply due to our limited domestic market competition.

10 years ago 50% of barley used in malting was imported! now it is more like 80%. 

SDL supply malt to all different breweries throughout China as well as exporting throughout all of south east Asia. Their customer base varies from variety driven to specification driven. 

Starch, protein and colour are the specs they focus on with higher protein more benefit than lower. The varieties of choice are baudin, hindmarsh and bulloke, however they also use commander, vlamingh and bass blended together with FAQ (Fair Average Quality) barley. AUD $15 to $20 premium is the most they would pay for any variety or quality.

We then it taken on a tour of the Swiss produced Buhler type malting plant. This is a tall gravity feed system where the highest floors are the steep process where they germinate the barley using a water and mixing it over a five day period. It then moves down the building to the drying stage where they heat the wet grain to 50c for 18hrs then to 80c for 14hrs. 

We can feel the heat which comes from steam produced at the power station which is right next door.

After this process it is bagged into 40kg bags and filled into containers or bulk filled into containers and taken to the customer by truck either or ship via the port that was literally 500m away.

It takes seven days for the whole process and they can produce 550 tonne each batch. One tonne of malting barley makes 800kg of malt with the wastage sold of as feed, mainly for poultry.

We are told the key to profits at each malting plant owned by SDL is it's location.  Up country freight rates are high and the cost of getting barley in and malt out can vary dramatically.

We were then taken to a nearby restraunt where we were again fantastically hosted to a large meal. It was great to see the malt house up close and get a good understanding of how they operate and how they see Western Australian barley.

Raymann was really open and honest with his opinions on all topics to do with China - which hasn't always been the case at the places we have visited. It was interesting to note how closely they watch all crop and political conditions in Australia, particularly Western Australia.

From here is was off south on the bus towards Shenzhen. High rises are still under construction everywhere along this drive. 

We are off to visit Shenzhen Four Gardiners - which is a major trading house here in China.

Upon entering Shenzhen we were met with colour of luscious trees and abundance of flowers, something we haven't seen much of in the harsher climates of the north. Shenzhen 30 years ago was farmland, now it is high rise and people everywhere with population of 15 million. There is also a fresh modern feel with new buildings surrounded by the trees and gardens. A generally better aesthetic feel.

We arrived at reception of Four Gardiners where we were met by Lu Limin, Director and Vice General Manager. From there it was off to the board room where we were given a run down on their very professional operation, mainly importing of commodities. All up there is 20 kinds of commodities with wheat, corn and sorghum being the main ones.

Corn imports have gone from 100 million tonnes 10 years ago to 210 million tonnes now. In a similar time frame China have gone from exporting sorghum to importing 60 million tonnes of it with a huge potential for growth from all feed grains expected.

Four Gardiners did express their concern about the consistency of quality of Australian wheat citing they had experienced hard Kernels amongst ASW wheat and low proteins which has been affecting their ability to produce gluten. 

However, I feel that this is a slightly inconsistent message to others we have spoken to on this trip and maybe they need to pay for the quality specs or protein they actually want.

We were then treated to another amazing feed at a huge restraunt with a traditional Shenzhen banquet. The food all trip has been amazing and this was no exception however feel a plain old steak and salad might have to be on the cards shortly.

Afterwards the girls were treated to some local shopping and the blokes retired home to bed.