Millers use record levels of home-grown wheat

Millers are using more wheat, both home-grown and imported.

The GB milling industry used 1.71m tonnes of wheat in January-March this year, 13% more than during the same period last year.

The latest Defra stats show this takes the use so far this cereal season (1 July – 30 March) to 5.35m tonnes, the largest amount of wheat milled at this point on records going back to 1997. The use figures include wheat delivered for starch and bioethanol production.

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The amount of home-grown wheat used in GB milling so far this season has also reached the highest level on record, at 4.67m tonnes, reports AHDB market intelligence analyst Millie Askew.

While the tonnage of imported wheat used in milling is 4% lower year on year at 707,000t, imported wheat use in January-March this year was 230,000t, 4% higher than the same period in 2015-16.

Brewers, maltsters and distillers are also using more wheat.

At 172,000t in January to March this year, their demand was 21% higher than during the same months of 2016.

The figures overall reflect the very high quality of last year’s crop, which yielded about 12% less than the 2015 harvest.

“February was the third month in a row where the UK was a net importer of wheat, following 14 consecutive months of being a net exporter,” said Ms Askew.

“Furthermore, anecdotal comments suggest wheat supplies in certain regions of the country have started to dry up. With this in mind, the GB milling industry (including starch and bioethanol) may need to use a greater proportion of imported wheat during the last quarter of the season.”

Brewers, maltsters and distillers also used 460,000t of barley in the first quarter, 3.2% more than during the same months of 2016.