CAMROSE, Alta. – In an unusual turn of events, grain is being trucked from the United States to Canada, instead of the other way around.
“I can only confirm some wheat is moving from General Mills into Canada by truck,” said Kerry Schaefer, regional manager for the North West grain operation for General Mills, in Great Falls, Mont.
Because of “competitive reasons,” Schaefer would only say a “fairly good quantity” of U.S. hard red spring wheat is coming into Canada.
Schaefer said this is the first time General Mills has shipped grain overseas via Canada through Alberta Wheat Pool
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elevators.
He would not say why the company is taking the unusual route of shipping through Canada, but said it had nothing to do with the tight supply of rail cars in the U.S.
“The cars are as tight in Canada as they are in the United States,”
he said.
Trish Jordan, Alberta pool’s communications co-ordinator, said the pool is not buying the grain but is allowing General Mills to pass it through pool elevators to load onto CN rail cars for shipment from Alberta Pool’s Vancouver terminal to overseas customers. Jordan said grain to fill one vessel is the total amount involved, and while she wasn’t sure why the American company was using the Canadian route, she suspected it is due to economics.
Jordan said the shipment had nothing to do with a joint Alberta Pool-General Mills partnership to build a grain facility at Sweetgrass, Mont.
That transfer facility is still under construction.
Changing shipping patterns
A shift to north-south shipping patterns, the North American Free Trade Agreement and massive rail reforms prompted the decision to build the facility, said a pool press release.
General Mills is a U.S.-based company and one of the largest packaged-food companies.
