Smeaton-based company is using its grain byproduct to tap into Asia’s growing demand for stock feed

ONE SMEATON business has created a new market for its grain by-products.

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ONE SMEATON business has created a new market for its grain byproducts and also tapped into Asia’s growing appetite for dairy and red meat.

Asia and New Zealand are the primary export markets for UniGrains’ stock feed pellets which it started to produce 18 months ago.

The business, primarily owned by the Costa and May families, focuses on value-adding to grain for human consumption and produces products such as oats for breakfast cereals.

But as the volumes of wheat and pulses processed at the site started to rise, so did the level of byproducts, and UniGrain managing dir­ector Bill May said it was “sensible” to utilise the high protein and energy as a pellet.

“We have a competitive price edge ... we have all the byproducts on site,” Mr May said.

“We are the only site in Australia with a pulse mill, oat mill and pellet mill on the one site.”

The Smeaton site processes more than 2000 tonnes of total product a week, and it’s rising.

Grain is sourced from western Victoria, the Mallee, Wimmera, North East Victoria and southern NSW.

Broad beans are sourced from the southeast of South Australia.

About 75 per cent of UniGrains’ pellets are exported with the strongest demand from the dairy industry, but there are markets for lamb and beef feedlots as well as sheep.

“A common thread with all our markets is that they are all a net importer of feed,” Mr May said.

“There’s a section of the market in each country that is better suited to pellets than the importation of raw materials.”

The pellets are sold into the local dairy industry throughout Victoria and into Tasmania.

Mr May said the rise in demand for red meat and dairy products in Asia flowed back to an increase in demand for feed products.