it is not always suitable for the same applications (it is not favoured in equine feeds, for example, or in bucket and block manufacture, while conversely some industrial applications are more suited to beet than cane) nevertheless it does have an impact on the market. India is both a large producer and user of cane molasses;


depending on the size of its crop it is usually a significant exporter but can occasionally be a net importer. In 2003/04, for example, it needed to import 400,000 tonnes of molasses whereas in 2006/07 it had a million tonnes available for export. With the smaller volume of international trade changes like this have a big effect on prices. And while inclusion levels of 15% or more of molasses in some feeds, which used to be the norm, will probably not be seen again, nevertheless the drop in price arising from a sudden glut will lead to an increase in demand from compounders and farmers. Such a volatile demand profile is harder for suppliers like UM to service than a steady requirement for an inclusion level limited by physical factors rather than price. Exchange rates also have a big impact. As Simon says, “We buy


in dollars, ship in dollars, land in dollars but sell in sterling.” And prices are only just now returning to a more natural cycle, where a new crop leads to a softening of prices, after a period in which this cycle was obscured by exchange rate patterns caused by other, more significant world events. For United Molasses, it wasn’t only the supply side which changed;


the customer base has evolved rapidly as well. With the number of feed mills and farmers both much reduced, and the increasing concentration of ruminant numbers in the west of the country, a re-evaluation of how the business was organised was required. It is, in any event, says Simon, much better to analyse trends and evolve over time rather than to ignore them and be forced into much more sudden change at a later date. Technology advances as well, meaning that each individual can do much more and the number of people needed within the business is reduced. On the marketing side in Great Britain, there are now three area managers with Clare Fortune looking after the South, Steve Wild looking after the North and Gordon Smith looking after Scotland. Their principal responsibilities are sales to farms, merchants and single site mills. Simon Markham is in overall charge of national sales made by the area managers, as well as directly looking after multi-mill compounders. Ian Beck heads up UM Advanced Liquid Feeds, while Mark Few is operations manager covering UM GB & ALF. There are four traders, based at the UM Group Head Office in London, respectively looking after Europe, Asia, the Americas and beet molasses. There has been re-organisation of infrastructure as well as in


personnel. The biggest investment has come in Liverpool, with a move to Gladstone Dock (referred to tongue-in-cheek within the company as ‘the Disraeli Project’). Gladstone is further down the River Mersey than the Regent Road site, and consequently has a greater depth of water available, 12m as opposed to 10m. It doesn’t sound much of a difference but it has an enormous impact on flexibility. 12m is a greater depth than any of the load ports, which means that even 40,000 tonne vessels can get alongside without the need to call in at another port first to offload a part of the cargo, which is an expensive operation adding


PAGE 28 JULY/AUGUST 2018 FEED COMPOUNDER Sponsored by B2B Nutrition


several pounds per tonne to the price. Incidentally, Portbury boasts 13m depth of water, so there are now two west coast facilities available for first offloading. Organising the logistics is the biggest challenge to the business; there is always plenty of molasses on the water and with another new high volume terminal able to take product first without the need to lighten at another port, the traders have more flexibility about where to bring those vessels in. At £2 million, the move to Gladstone did not come cheap. But it is


a worthwhile investment to future-proof operations. One of the biggest costs incurred was for the vast area of concrete, all laid in one piece, with expansion joints cut in afterwards. Then there was a new dock line, two new weighbridges, an overhead gantry with keypad control to ensure the correct product is taken and railed walkways and steps allowing drivers to load with safety engineered in, rather than having to hook up. The whole procedure is far slicker than it used to be. Drivers phone through in advance to inform the staff at the terminal of their estimated time of arrival. When they do arrive, they are allocated a code to input into the keypad. Then they drive on to the weighbridge, weigh the vehicle, then walk up on to the gantry and input the code. The steps are easily manoeuvred over the hatch on the vehicle, allowing the driver to safely access it and open it up. Then the delivery chute is positioned over the hatch and the product is dispatched into the tank. The only other duty of the driver is to take a sample of the product mid- way through the delivery. After the required amount has been loaded, a second reading is taken on the weighbridge, confirming the weight of product on board. Because there are two weighbridges and four overhead tanks (two above each weighbridge) there is full flexibility to ensure two vehicles can be loaded simultaneously or that one product can be being made while another is loading. The drivers simply, weigh, fill, weigh and go – unlike at Regent Road, there is no one-way system to contend with – and a vehicle can be on and off-site comfortably within three-quarters of an hour. The loading tanks, which have a capacity of 30 tonnes each, all sit


on load cells, which means that the tankers can be completely filled with an accuracy within a few kilos, with batch sizes ranging from 5 tonnes up to the maximum legal payload of 28 tonnes. With one 13,500 tonne storage tank converted to molasses, plus two 1000 tonne service tanks (where product is heated to 30°C to make it flow more easily) there is a total of 15,500 tonnes of cane molasses storage at Gladstone. Added to this are two CMS holding tanks, with a combined capacity of 4500 tonnes, as well as micro-ingredients like mould inhibitors and flavours stored in IBCs on load cells. All product is filtered twice, meaning blends can be made cleanly as well as accurately. There are up to eight large vessels unloaded per month as well as several barges every day; with up to 50 vehicles loading per day at the height of the season, this is a very busy terminal both on the water and on the land side. The site at Regent Road has been retained, at least for the time


being. There is tankage there and a dock line, which means it can still be used for making some speciality products, although it is now largely used for third party storage of oils. For molasses, Gladstone is where the main volume is processed in Liverpool. Besides the two high


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