Ormiston grain store open day attracts hundreds of visitors

Cefetra is one of the UK’s major suppliers of grains and animal feed raw materials, and acquired the Ormiston facility just three months ago, as part of a £7 million-plus deal that also saw it take over a 60,000-tonne store at Charlesfield in Melrose near the Scottish Borders.

In an effort to give comfort to the local industry that the 80,00 tonne Ormiston store was in safe hands, the company opted to issue an early open day invitation to farmers throughout the region.

Managing director Andrew Mackay said: “Organising an early 'open day' meant that not only were we able to demonstrate our long-term commitment to the agricultural supply sector as a whole but that visitors were able to see for themselves how Cefetra continues to strengthen its operations for the benefit of farming and farmers.

Read more: Cefetra invests millions in Scottish grain storage

“Ormiston provides us with a great facility, with cutting edge technology and lots of capacity, situated in the heart of the agricultural businesses in Scotland.”

On that day, farmers and grain buyers heard Cefetra's future plans for the store and were able to look around the premises as well as see its state-of-the-art laboratory. The overriding feedback, said Mr Mackay, was relief that the store had been taken over by a financially strong company that they could work with on a long term basis.

Cefetra has a network of 40 storage sites across the UK and Ireland from which it dispatches between 85,000 – 90,000 tonnes of raw materials to industry partners every week, delivering in the region of 600 lorry loads per day. Altogether it has over 700,000 tonnes of storage capacity supported by state-of-the-art processing technology.

Its products are used for animal feed and throughout the food and drink sector, while customers include food producers across multiple sectors such as dairy, beef, lamb, poultry, pork, salmon, beer, bread, biscuits, breakfast cereals, and pet food.