Corson’s Defiance Maize Products has bought its first gritting mill in NSW. Photo: Ray White Rural Griffith

CORSON Grain’s Defiance Maize Products has bought the Freedom Foods gritting mill at Darlington Point in south-west New South Wales from Good Food Partners.

The Darlington Point mill is located in Australia’s largest maize-growing region, and the purchase which settled last week will allow it to process maize and other grains grown in the Murrumbidgee Irrigation Area locally.

“Corson Grain has experienced strong growth in demand for its products throughout Australia and our plan is to step up production to meet growing ingredient demand from Melbourne and Sydney customers,” Corson Australia general manager Shawn Fletcher said.

“The mill will not only future-proof maize-ingredient capacity but also allows Corson to branch into new products such as rice, sorghum, buckwheat and quinoa flours, something a number of our business customers had been asking for.’

Corson is a leading producer of maize-based ingredients to the food industry across Australasia and southeast Asia, and currently produces flaking grits, semolina, polenta, maize flour, popcorn and dressed maize.

Corson has three maize mills, two in New Zealand, and one in Warwick on Queensland’s Southern Downs which it bought in 2003.

The Warwick mill is believed to be processing around 35,000 tonnes of maize per annum, while the capacity of the Darlington Point mill has not been made public.

The Darlington Point mill was sold by Ray White Rural Griffith through an expressions-of-interest campaign which closed in late October 2021.

The site was listed as including 6800t of grain storage, an operating mill, grain cleaning and packaging equipment, warehouse, weighbridge, office, residence, gluten-free cleaning and packaging line, a separate flour mill and a sorghum-cleaning plant.

The listing said it had recently been used to make rice flour, popcorn, and maize grits and will be sold with an extensive list of quality assets.

Source: Corson Grain, Ray White Rural Griffith