WA wheat set for processing in Philippines

Interflour Group, which is half-owned by CBH Group, has today shipped the first load of wheat from Kwinana to its new Mabuhay mill in the Philippines.

Interflour will next month commence final commissioning of its $US30 million Mabuhay Interflour Mill in Subic Bay, Philippines.

Interflour broke ground on the project in December 2015.

The milling facility will be capable of producing 500 metric tonnes a day of flour for the Philippine market once fully operational.

The first tonnages of wheat for the new facility will be exported from CBH’s Kwinana Port today as part of the largest shipment of Western Australian grain ever consigned by Interflour.

At 71,000t, the shipment will carry wheat and malt barley to a number of Interflour’s mills, including the Mabuhay Interflour Mill as well as the new Intermalt facility in Vietnam.

“This will be the first batch of Western Australian wheat to be processed at the Mabuhay Interflour Mill in the Philippines, which is set for final commissioning at the end of July,” Interflour managing director Greg Harvey said.

“We will also be supplying malt barley to the new Intermalt facility in Vietnam.

“It is quite an achievement for Interflour, we’re now seeing the benefits of the integration of our network of mills, creating more efficiencies in the supply chain by growing our scale.

“This shipment, like all of our shipments from Western Australia are solely sourced through the CBH storage and handling system.”

CBH Group chief executive Andrew Crane welcomed the shipping milestone.

“It’s great to see so much Western Australian grain being exported to our international investment Interflour,” Dr Crane said.

“The shipment marks a new phase of growth in our investment in grain processing with operations starting at the Mabuhay Interflour Mill and at Intermalt which will greatly benefit our growers now and into the future.”