Bunge Canada is wooing soybean growers in the
Waterloo-Wellington-Perth area with better prices to entice them to sell
directly to the company for its crushing plant at Hamilton.
Brad DeJong, a grain marketing specialist for the company,
came to the annual meeting of the Waterloo-Oxford district of Grain Farmers of
Ontario today to tell how and why the company is expressing renewed interest
in buying from them.
He said the company had a high staff turnover over the last
six years and lost touch with a number of its farmer-suppliers. It relied more
on buying from agents and dealers.
Now it has decided to cut costs and increase its competitive
bidding by arranging back-hauls with truckers delivering soybean meal to the
many feed mills in the Waterloo-Wellington-Perth area. He said that means it is able to offer "good prices" for direct pickup from growers.
Bunge has recently entered a joint venture with a crushing
plant at Becancour, Que., and so its business in Eastern Canada is now known as
Bunge ETCO.
The Bunge plant also crushes canola.
