Earlier this year, Brazilian wheat mills J Macedo, Dias Branco and Grande Moinho Cearense made a joint purchase of 25,000 tonnes of Russian wheat via the Kaliningrad port for discharge in the Northeast Brazilian port of Fortaleza.
The deal was only possible after the governments of Brazil and Russia signed a phytosanitary protocol late last year, removing a ban that was in place for several years to avoid risks to Brazilian plantations.
The purchase and the quality approval by the mills opens a new supply alternative to Brazil, which needs to source about half its wheat consumption from abroad every year since the local climate is not ideal to grow it.
“We bought two types of wheat from Russia, one standard and another with higher protein content,” said a sourcing director at one of the mills, who asked not to be named because he was not authorized to speak publicly about the deal.
“Samples were evaluated by labs and everything was fine. It is good wheat, good quality,” he said.
Brazil imports around 6 million tonnes of wheat every year to meet its annual consumption of around 10.7 million tonnes. Most comes from neighboring Argentina, which has tax free status as a member of the Mercosur trade bloc. The United States and Canada are also regular suppliers, although of smaller volumes.
From January to September, Brazil bought 4.6 million tonnes of wheat from Argentina, 173,000 tonnes from the United States and 167,000 tonnes from Canada.
Brazilian wheat industry consultancy Trigo & Farinhas reported on Monday that a second cargo of up to 30,000 tonnes of Russian wheat was heading to Brazil this month.
The miller behind the first deal said they were not the buyers of the second cargo, and added that he was not certain if there had been any new purchase.
“Prices went up a lot in Russia, it doesn’t make much sense now,” he said. Russia is producing a smaller wheat crop this year due to drought.
