Staff at Viterra’s Kimba site in the company’s Western region. Photo: Viterra

GROWER deliveries into Viterra’s network hit 8.45 million tonnes on Sunday, the South Australian-based bulk handler said in its weekly harvest report released today.

On the Eyre Peninsula, grower deliveries to Viterra passed 3.2Mt for the season to break the record set in the 2016-17 harvest.

“Along with breaking the all-time record last week, which is a huge achievement, we have so far had seven sites break their season receival records,” Viterra Western region operations manager Nick Pratt said.

Those sites include Rudall, which passed its 277,730t record set in 2016-17 last Monday.

An additional five sites have also broken their daily receivals records in the region, with some breaking it more than once during the harvest.

“These records are a credit to our employees whose work moving grain through our network has allowed growers to deliver their grain safely and efficiently,” Mr Pratt said.

“It’s also a great effort by growers and carriers who have worked hard to harvest and deliver the big crop on the Eyre Peninsula.”

Growers also continued to break records set in 2016-17 in Viterra’s Central and Eastern regions at sites including Port Giles, Saddleworth and Tailem Bend, while Snowtown broke its record set in 2013-14.

Of Viterra’s three regions, Central had the biggest week by far in the seven days to Sunday.

“We are continuing to out-turn grain to provide extra space for growers still delivering, particularly at our Roseworthy and Gladstone sites,” Viterra Central region operations manager Jack Tansley says.

Viterra Eastern region operations manager Andrew Cannon said grower deliveries were continuing to flow into the region, but slowed over the weekend with the hot weather.

“Along with working hard to provide an efficient service to our grower customers, the team have also been busy out-turning grain from up-country sites for shipping at our Adelaide ports where we are seeing strong demand,” Mr Cannon said.

Wheat is by far the largest commodity growers have delivered into Viterra’s sites, including two in western Victoria.

Viterra last week broke its receival record on faba beans of 215,000t  set last harvest, and Viterra general manager operations Gavin Cavanagh said 11 sites have received faba beans this harvest.

“We increased available faba bean storage based on growers’ feedback that they were expecting to deliver increased tonnes after a good growing season,” Mr Cavanagh said.

Table 1: Viterra Australia receivals for the 2022-23 harvest to January 15.

Source: Viterra