CBH Board on tour - day one by Brian McAlpine

The board, CEO, and Company Secretary have started on a 10 day tour starting in Tokyo, Japan. Led by Jason Craig, GM Marketing and Trading, the purpose of the tour is to assist in building important relationships with some of our key customers. Today was all about Zen-Noh, Japans largest co-operative with 9.4 million farmer members. Its business consists of rice, vegetable and fruits, livestock, materials and fuel with an annual turnover of $50 billion AUD. CBH has had a long relationship with Zen-Noh of over 40 years and currently supplies every year 300,000 tonnes of feed barley, 200,000 tonnes of wheat, 20,000 tonnes of lupins and 10,000 tonnes of oats. The morning was spent visiting a silo complex of Zen-Noh at Kashima Port, an hour from Tokyo central.

The artificially excavated port covers many industries but the area of interest is the feed grain area. With one 65,000 tonne panamax berth and three 3,000 tonne Coaster berths, feeds by a common chain conveyor system three competing silo terminals, and 11 feed factories producing 3.9 million tonnes per annum. The shared resources are a great example on how MGC could be developed. A brief walk around the facilities followed a presentation describing the details. Questions on their silo maintenance were raised with some possible learning’s. Lunch was at a traditional Japanese restaurant that interestingly, was owned by the Zen-Noh Co-operative. This business venture was in response to its Wagyu beef members getting fluctuating and decreasing returns for their premium product due to the increasing dominance of larger supermarkets. This is a great example of a co-op identifying a strategic issue of its members and investing accordingly.

The afternoon had us visit the head office of Zen-Noh in which we were to have presentation from senior executives. Yoshiki Saito, President of the Feed & Livestock division, delivered the welcome speech through an interpreter. Following Neil’s greeting speech, Unicoop (similar to our Marketing & Trading division) President gave a grain business overview. A series of further meetings provided some good insight into possible opportunities that may arise between the two businesses and the unique relationship that two farmer co-operatives have.

To complete the very positive afternoon meetings a formal dinner was held with the Chairman and CEO of Zen-Noh attending alongside the afternoon presenters. In a very exclusive and traditional Japanese garden setting with the Tokyo Tower in lights near-by, a very relaxed and fun filled night was had by all. As large and successful Zen-Noh is, it is a co-operative that is working for the benefit of its members in the very same way that CBH is.