Openfield
British grain marketing and arable inputs co-operative
Openfield is a British grain marketing and arable inputs co-operative based in Lincolnshire. It is one of Britain's largest agricultural companies and Britain's only national co-operative in its field, with a turnover of over £550m. It markets grain for farmers and grain stores. In other countries, mainly Canada, this type of company is known as a wheat pool. The head office is based on the former RAF North Witham and prominent customers include some of the largest and well known British food and drink brands in the UK.
Openfield is a member of the Fertiliser Industry Assurance Scheme, and works with many fertiliser suppliers including CF, Glasson, ICL, Nitrasol, Omex, Origin, Timac and Yara. It is also a member of the Agricultural Industries Confederation.
01History
It was formed in November 2008 from the merger of Centaur Grain (of Andover) and Grainfarmers (of Micheldever, Winchester). It is now the largest UK farmer owned grain marketing co-operative and one of the largest companies in Lincolnshire, by turnover. The Colsterworth site opened in 1980.
Centaur Grain
Centaur had been formed in 2001 when Group Cereal Services (GCS) of South East England joined Lingrain of the East of England. It was based at Goodworth Clatford in north Hampshire.
Grainfarmers
This began as the Southern Counties Agricultural Trading Society in 1907. It was renamed as Grainfarmers Group Ltd in 2003. It had offices in Aberdeen, Walton (near Wetherby), Bressingham, Bourne, LincsCompton Abdale, Cannington and Micheldever. It marketed over 17% of the UK's grain and represented over 4000 farmers.
Sources and credits
This article is adapted from the Wikipedia article “Openfield”, written by its contributors and licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0. Fathomly has changed the layout, removed citation markers, navigation and maintenance notices, and adjusted punctuation. This adapted version is shared under the same license. For references, see the original article.
Images, from Wikimedia Commons:
- Openfield logo.png by Unknown author, Fair use
- Corporate Image, Cereals farm show, Wendy - geograph.org.uk - 1366271.jpg by Michael Trolove, CC BY-SA 2.0
- Load out - geograph.org.uk - 1272180.jpg by Michael Trolove, CC BY-SA 2.0
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