Why would a U.S. wheat flour miller import wheat from outside of the U.S. and what does that mean for the U.S. wheat marketplace? Vince Peterson US Wheat Associates President explains this obscure situation.
“We do have some European, Eastern European, most likely Polish origin, wheat that is going to be moving into flour mill in Tampa, Florida, which is the only flour mill we have in the United States that is actually built on a water access facility, it’s a new flour mill that was built about the last one or two years down there,” says Peterson.
Blaming this situation on Russian President Vladimir Putin, Peterson explains that commodities from Ukraine have flooded the domestic market for Eastern European countries pushing prices down.
“The Russian invasion and a displacement of all those Ukrainian agricultural goods has made a huge problem in Eastern Europe,” said Peterson. “So, when they blocked essentially the Black Sea access by ship, and it’s not blocked entirely there’s a corridor there’s been protected, but a huge flood of grain, wheat, corn, oil seeds, and some other things, went across into Eastern Europe.”
Bottom line, he says, that the Tampa Florida Miller is making a decision based on economics.
“At $100 ton difference, you can put it on a boat in Poland bring it all the way across the Atlantic and take it into Tampa, Florida, and be less than the price of the U.S. hard winter wheat railed across the United States to get there,” Peterson concludes.
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