68 | Corson Grain Leading maize specialist still growing T T Richard Loader Corson Grain is a business with a foot planted in both the past and the future. PRODUCTION Founded as a family owned and operated business in Gisborne 120 years ago, Corson Grain has evolved as Australasia’s leading maize specialist, with sights set on an exciting future that embraces diversification. Now in its fifth generation of family ownership and governance, with mills in Gisborne, Tuakau, Warwick in Queensland and Griffith in New South Wales, Corson Grain is a business built on enduring relationships, says CEO Daniel Prenter. “That’s relationships with our grower base, our customers and our staff. It’s a family owned business and it holds those family values very close to its heart,” says Daniel. “As a family and management team those values are fundamentally about care. We want to see all those three groups thrive as a result of partnering with us, and that is the key to unlocking our success,” he says. Corson Grain has always had a strong focus on maize and milling, initially as a stock food business and then transitioning into the milling of maize for human consumption. With that evolution came the purchase of a maize mill in Australia and in the last three years the miller has expanded to four sites across New Zealand and Australia, contracting for specific varieties of grain for maize milling. Corson has one harvest cycle in New Zealand and two in Australia because there is more than one planting season in Australia. The milling process involves the extraction of flaking grits for breakfast cereals which are supplied to a range of cornerstone customers in New Zealand and Australia including Kellogg’s, Sanitarium and Hubbards. From the milling process they also produce Semolina and Polenta, for snack foods and produce corn flour that is sold into the bakery and the food coatings markets. Daniel explains that Corson’s customers require continuity of supply, and that motivated the purchase of the Tuakau mill and very recently the Griffith mill in the northwestern Riverina Region of New South Wales. “We can supply any one of our customers in Australia, New Zealand, Pacific or Asia from any one of our four sites, because the product range is common. “We’re also looking to expand our product range beyond maize products and the Griffith mill is configured to process a range of alternative legumes. The Griffith location is strategic as many alternative crops are currently grown in the region.” “We’re also looking to expand our product range beyond maize products and the Griffith mill is configured to process a range of alternative legumes.” Another key reason for Corson purchasing the Griffith mill was proximity to market, particularly the larger domestic markets of Sydney and Melbourne. “We’re looking to push further into plant based food ingredients as a business and diversify our portfolio of products, so we’re pretty excited about the Griffith mill. It’s a well set up business which will provide us with real optionality to innovate our food ingredients business. “That’s where we see our future. We hope it will provide us with the opportunity to innovate our product range and do it with relative ease and speed. “We built a NPD (New Product Development) kitchen in Gisborne last year and a lot of our food research will continue out of there but the diversity of crops comes more naturally out of NSW.” Daniel says while plant based food diets are currently on-trend, he suspects there has always been an underlying demand for plant based food products. “We’re now simply more attuned to the health benefits of balancing protein and fibre,” he says. Corson Grain is a business with a foot planted in both the past and the future and while its provenance provides confidence up and down the supply chain, this is a business that understands its future depends on innovation and adapting to consumer demand.
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