Adding value to Irish grain

This year’s awards were held at the Guinness Storehouse in Dublin, and given that Guinness is a huge user of Irish malting barley in their products, the venue was especially appropriate. With 14 separate awards being presented, the occasion also provided an impressive perspective on the range of grains grown in Ireland.

The premium strategy

Tirlán’s grain strategy is to develop as many premium markets as possible for its customers’ crops, John explains: “We're probably most synonymous with our work recently in terms of developing our oats portfolio. Right across our grain crops, however, we are constantly developing new markets, new applications, and new products. Gluten-free oats is a subset of that.

“By far the largest volume premium grain we deal with would be barley. We have several different barley premiums including our Cassia winter barley contract. That’s the roasting barley that gives Guinness its lovely dark colour. We also have a premium adjunct barley with a milling specification; it also goes into that whole brewing and distilling market. From our own perspective, we would have a big ambition to expand the acreage by somewhere between 50-60 per cent in terms of malting barley contracts. Tirlán has a significant investment in our joint venture in Cork in the Malting Company of Ireland. That's something that we have a lot of hope for in the future. We have a huge focus on food grains to attract premium prices.”

Milling wheat potential?

Asked about the potential to develop a milling wheat sector, John says: “This is something that we would have investigated at a very high level over the last number of years, and we don't see as an immediate opportunity for Tirlán. It's certainly something that we are staying abreast of and keeping up to date with. Consistently producing milling quality wheat, in sufficient quantities to justify the construction of a flour mill in Ireland, is something that we don't see as an immediate opportunity.” He continues: “As I say, our focus in Tirlán would be value-adding Irish cereals as much as possible. All the cereals that we use in our Gain Feeds range come from our own growers. So, it's native Irish wheat, barley, oats, and beans. We have 1,100 grain growers who are delivering to us consistently somewhere between 12-15 per cent of the national harvest. Approximately two thirds of that grain comes to us green at harvest and the rest of the time we're buying from a grower's store. The vast majority of those growers are Tirlán shareholders and we're increasingly seeing interest and patronage from cereal growers who want to access those premium grain opportunities, especially those food and drinks industry contracts that we have to offer. Ultimately, that’s what allows us to pay out premiums totalling €3m over and above the feed price value of grain supplied to us every harvest.”

Grain prices

Irish grain price is ultimately dependent on global grain prices, as John acknowledges: “Our aim is to pay as high a market price as possible to our growers and add to the base price through achieving premium-paying markets for much of that grain. We do offer our growers an ongoing option to fix grain price at any stage throughout the year. We have a pool of about 800 growers that are receiving a dry forward price offer or a green forward price offer on a weekly basis for wheat, for barley, oats or oilseed rape. Ultimately, those offers are for growers to decide on accepting or not.”

Tirlán’s oats journey

 Kieran Duggan is Tirlán’s head of sales for Europe, Middle East and Africa for dairy and plant ingredients. In the latter case, much effort is ongoing to further develop market and product opportunities for Tirlán’s oats supplies, he explains: “In order to return value in the market, we must be aiming for that high end, niche, specialist customer. We're not going to compete internationally at a commodity level because we don't have the scale of Canada or elsewhere. We have to find our niche opportunities. Primarily our oats journey has evolved from what was a traditional oat flake business out of our mill in Portlaoise into a more diverse portfolio. Listening to our customers internationally, we’ve seen that oats are now present across a much wider range of applications in both retail stores and wider market channels as well. In response to those developments in brands wanting to incorporate oats, we've been innovating around our raw material to deliver more diverse choices, which extends to things such as oat flours that are designed for specific applications within those industries.

“Most recently, we have developed a range of oat syrups, all building out and innovating from our traditional oat flake business. That's enabling us to achieve premiums from domestic and international customers.”

Food, rather than feed, offers greater premiumisation opportunities, Kieran says: “You can only make so much margin out of selling feed for livestock. The opportunities are far greater when it comes to food for affluent consumers. That being said, it's still competitive. We have to look for that customer that's prepared to value the proposition that we have. And that in itself takes resources and takes time and takes energy. We're not just flogging a commodity. We're out there with a high-value product that needs a lot of care and attention and the support of agronomists and expertise to deliver a very high-quality raw material. It's incumbent on us as the commercial arm out in the international markets to find and deliver customers. Traceability and provenance are important attributes. The consumer has never as much wanted to know where their product is coming from. They're looking at labels and origins and sustainability credentials. We're in the right place in those terms, but it is competitive and there are other players out there as well competing in that space.”

Investing in innovation

“We're still relatively new in the value-added ingredients business. We are winning and there are grounds for optimism in the years ahead. We've invested in a state-of-the-art innovation centre in Ballyragget. I think we've cut our cloth to our needs. We have highly qualified expertise in terms of research and development and that has been showcased by the innovations that we're able to bring to market within the oat category and by extension, to our dairy business.”