The shortest day has now past and while it is likely the worst of winter is still to come, in about three weeks’ time we will notice a real difference in longer daylight hours.  

Also, on the improve is the pricing of raw materials for the calf meal. Grain prices continue to ease, and we have also seen a drop in price for canola oil. Molasses has stayed steady, soy meal continues to act like a roller coaster, it was heading lower quite nicely before it jumped by over $100 per tonne in the last week.

However, we have enough soy contracted for July, August, and September at a really good price and hopefully by the time we need to buy more the price has dropped again.

We have continued to experiment with how we add the liquids during the mixing process. I don’t know how many variations we have tried but it certainly has been numerous. Thankfully sales of calf meal for autumn calves have allowed this testing to continue. We have settled on we think is the best way for our system and are now waiting for the stainless steel fabricators to finish the modifications.

Again, we have been fortunate to pick up a significant number of pallets from Oceania Dairy which means our policy of not charging for pallets will continue. Though its always great to have them returned if they are clean and not broken.

Our price for the High Octane was $996 +GST + Freight ($906 ++ for Low Protein) at the end of last season and at the beginning of June this dropped to $954 ++ ($884 for Low Protein) and it will drop again on July 1st as per below.

New Prices as of July 1st

High Octane Aoraki Calf Meal        40 x 25kg              $916 + GST ex our yard
Low Protein Aoraki Calf Meal        40 x 25kg               $852 + GST ex our yard

This price will be reviewed before October 1st, there is a chance grain prices will continue to ease and hopefully by then soy prices have also dropped. If this happens another drop in price is possible.

Kind Regards
Ken Buckingham

Crikey it seems to have been a long cold winter.  Though maybe its not any colder or longer than usual but for us it has been a bit different this winter. We have been commissioning the new feedmill for the last 4 weeks and some of the engineers have travelled from afar, once onsite they are keen to do long hours and get as much done as possible over several days before travelling home. A lot of these days have ended well into darkness. In hindsight I should have invested in a heater, Ben from Auckland is the automation engineer, his work is mainly software related so sitting out in the shed using his laptop with no heater until 9pm has been quite brutal.  

4 weeks of commissioning done, and I suspect it will take another 4 weeks before everything is bedded in and running smoothly. At this stage we will keep the old feedmill functioning for the layers mash and as backup. The new feedmill is much more complex and if we have a breakdown it is likely to require outside help to fix the problem causing time delays.

I become aware in early winter that during the autumn more grain than usual had been used on farms and this coupled with lower harvest yields could result in a perceived shortage for springtime. I have found in the past that no matter how bad the perceived grain shortage is, grain always seems to suddenly appear. However, the price can lift considerably.

With these thoughts, I decided to contract more plus brought more on the spot market filling the silos full. We now have enough contracted wheat and barley to manufacture the same amount of calf meal as last season without going to the spot market again. We have also contracted our molasses, canola oil and soy meal. Our main supplier of peas is 20% short of what we normally receive but hopefully we can find some more.

This means our price should be very stable and it will depend on sales as to whether we will need to do a price review at all during the season. There have been price increases for our raw materials however we have been able to limit the price increases for the calf meal to $12 per tonne.

Spring Prices 2021 effective from July 1^st

High Octane Aoraki Calf Meal        40 x 25kg              $760 + GST ex our yard

Low Protein Aoraki Calf Meal        40 x 25kg               $710 + GST ex our yard

Regards

Ken

For the last two weeks our oldest son Brendon has been on “holiday” from his job as a diesel mechanic at D&E. His help for two weeks certainly made our life easier and we have been able to keep up with the orders as well as the invoicing which is a rarity. Though not quite so easy for the freight companies and delivery times did stretch out a bit more than normal. The worst being our customer in Hokitika who got bumped by a week!

Thank you to those customers who when paying by internet use their proper customer code or invoice number. Makes our job of reconciling payments with the correct invoices much easier when we have the correct info, as it can be quite challenging especially where some farms have names that are very close to another farm or when there are multiple farms paid from the one account.
In our first newsletter for this season I wrote about the volatility of the soy price and I was hopeful that it would fall in price. And it did fall in price and we contracted enough to last until mid-October at $630 per tonne however since then China has been actively buying and the price has risen and I am now paying $840 per tonne. Hard to make sense of it, Fridays report state that China currently has 15.8 million tonnes of US soybeans waiting to be shipped.

On the positive side we are now buying wheat on the free market which is cheaper than our contracted wheat. These savings are helping us hold the High Octane price where it is. But more positively the Low Protein price will drop by $20 per tonne effective from November 1st. These savings are due to its higher wheat content, lower soy content and we have also made a couple of changes to the micro ingredients for the Low Protein making it more of a finisher diet.

Prices effective from November 1st 2020
High Octane Aoraki Calf Meal 40 x 25kg $748 + GST ex our yard
Low Protein Aoraki Calf Meal 40 x 25kg $698 + GST ex our yard

We are now very low on pallets, please stack up any of our pallets that you have (plus any others you want gone) and ask the freight company to pick them up next time they are in. We continue with our policy of using recycled pallets, I am of the opinion that to have purposely built pallets and then charge for them would cause a lot more administration and arguments (keen to avoid both) however we do rely on you to send them back.

Kind Regards
Ken Buckingham

On the Friday before SC Anniversary weekend, Daniel, Dave the sparky and myself drove to the West Coast for mountain biking. On the Saturday we rode part of the new Paparoa Track, starting from the Punakaiki end, we rode to just above the bush line before turning back. We started at 20m above sea level and climbed to over 900 with a total of 52km ridden and a total elevation of nearly 1800m (total elevation is recorded via phone/GPS and is every metre of climbing). The section of track we rode was very nice and I look forward to going back and riding it from end to end. With a snowfall warning for Arthurs Pass for the Sunday afternoon we decided to cut the weekend short and head home early Sunday, to be honest we were all quite content to spend Sunday not biking.

I have had some feedback on the new bags that they can be slippery to handle. The only suggestion I have is that you hold the unprinted side against your body as it has a non-slip surface. The new bags are easier for us to use as the previous bags that were inside laminated were sometimes hard to open for filling and its certainly nice not having that strip of plastic peeling off inside the bag.
As mentioned last month we have recently changed companies that host our email, unfortunately this didn’t go completely smoothly and we actually lost the ability to email invoices directly (hopefully fixed now – text Shona 027 689 1347 if you want your invoices emailed) on the positive side I now have 3 email addresses for everyday use.

• This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. is for general emails
• This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. is for orders of calf meal or layer mash
• This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. is for those sending invoices to me

The email address This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. still works and is good for emails that are less important (we all have lots of them). Statistics show the average office worker receives 121 emails per day and sends out 40, I wonder how many emails never get read. I am finding real benefits in having a drafting system.

Soy prices have once again done the unexpected and after dropping to around the $630 per tonne they bounced up to nearly $800 per tonne. We have some left on contract at $630 and I am hoping as we get closer to the USA election that the price will drop. Barley has also moved up in price and is now trading higher than wheat which is very unusual. At least there is plenty of wheat about and we will see some savings once we have finished our contracts. I am hopeful that it will all balance out and the calf meal price remains unchanged for October.

Please remember Labour Weekend is this month and the short week after Labour Weekend is one of our peak weeks, ordering early and avoiding this week is a good strategy.

Kind Regards
Ken Buckingham

I received a phone call from one of the companies we buy off as the admin lady was wanting my email address so she could email me the invoices. We had a discussion on it as I find receiving invoices by email less reliable than by post, however they have found the opposite and to be fair I have had complaints from customers regarding the postal service. It seems like neither system is 100% reliable.

We have been emailing invoices to some of our customers and for some it works fine and for others the only way it works is when I email the invoice to myself and then forward it which is a less than ideal. However, we have recently changed companies that host our email and we have been assured emailing will be better. One of our other concerns is security of the email and I note with interest that all the invoices we receive from Mainfreight now have the following advice.

“Note: As a security measure to combat cybercrime, if you receive any email notifying you of a change in Mainfreight’s bank account details, or an invoice/statement with a different bank account number, please contact our office on the phone number you normally contact us on, to confirm any change. We are not responsible for any loss arising from cybercrime.”

Scary stuff but we have decided to use email for invoices and the post for statements. If you would like your invoice emailed next month, please text your email address to Shona 027 689 1347. And if we have not got all your details quite correct also text Shona with the required changes.

It’s always a guessing game as to how much to spend on advertising. This year we used the Waimate Trader for our local customers and Rural Life for the central South Island. I often get requests from Business Rural to advertise in support of one our customers however we keep declining. A full page in Rural Life (which equals half page ad and half page editorial) is $300 where the equivalent in Business Rural is $2250 (their smallest ad size is $495). I trust you are not offended when we do not support your article in Business Rural.

Thank you to those of you who have been able to supply Lincoln Rotary Club with used calf meal bags, they have enough now for at least this year. On a similar vein, I am on the hunt for plastic 200 litre drums. We are about to replant an area we have cleared of pines on our hill block in native plants, the hassle we have is wallabies and I would like to use plastic drums as tree protectors, let me know if you can help.

A reminder South Canterbury Anniversary Day is Monday September 26th and we will be closed for the long weekend (away mountain biking hopefully ?)

Kind Regards
Ken Buckingham

Personally, I am finding that this year is just going way faster than normal, I think it’s due to time lost during the lock down period. While for most of us work continued, we couldn’t do everything we wanted to do and yet the days kept ticking bye, so now we are playing catchup but with limited time. One of the jobs we have been working on lately is building a new culvert and other earthworks on our wee hill block. To do this work it needs to be dry (and hopefully it doesn’t stay dry much longer), Daniel my son needs to be available to operate the digger (he works on a cropping farm in summer and autumn) I need to be available to assist and of course we need to have time. It would be easier and quicker to get a contractor in however it is our special bit of dirt and we get a lot of satisfaction of doing it ourselves. Hence the reason the invoices and newsletter are late.

Thank you to the positive feedback on our recent advertising in the Central Rural Life newspaper. The article on mountain biking got the most response. If you are a mountain biker and want a guided tour of the trails in Waimate then please feel free to make contact. From the advertising I also received a phone call requesting used calf meal bags as per following email
Great to talk to you this morning. We use the bags to fill with Mushroom compost for our Club's fund raising. Very successful. I am a member of the Lincoln Rotary Club. If any of your clients could let us have the used bags it would be a great help. They could either email me This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. or call/text me on 0275395375 or 03 3499310 and we will arrange to pick them up. Thanks for your help. Regards. John Smith

If you are willing to keep the bags (or currently have clean bags) then either contact John or myself.
Regarding calf meal pricing, the price of soy meal recently did briefly drop to a level that I was happy to contract which means we now have enough raw materials contracted to guarantee the price for August, September and maybe October.

Our prices are
High Octane Aoraki Calf Meal 40 x 25kg $748 + GST ex our yard
Low Protein Aoraki Calf Meal 40 x 25kg $718 + GST ex our yard

Kind Regards
Ken

We all know July 4th is a special day in the USA however this year I have an even greater appreciation of living in NZ rather than the USA. 2020 is certainly a year that will not be forgotten for so many reasons and yet we are only halfway through the year.

I got prepared to do my annual visits nice and early and have numerous vests sitting in boxes waiting to be delivered, however COVID stopped me getting on the road and since coming out of lockdown time has just disappeared unbelievably quick.

Last year we got the main shed built for the new feedmill and before lockdown we got some of the plant installed and the main silos built. Since lockdown we have started the mill shed and had more plant installed. However, it isn’t a fast process as most of the plant has to be custom designed and built. Hopefully, it will be finished by mid-September though luckily, we decided to leave the old feedmill intact (except for shifting 2 silos) so production can carry on.

Our bags were normally made in China however this year we have switched to Vietnam and in doing so we have taken the opportunity to make a few changes. The bags are now outside laminated rather than inside laminated. While the bags will now be more slippery, it will remove that problem that we sometimes had of a strip of lamination coming off on the inside of the bag and ending up in the meal. We have also added an easy opening strip to the bottom of the bag. We still have a few of the old styled bags to use for about another month.

We have a reasonable amount of our grain contracted already however the one ingredient I haven’t got contracted is soy meal. At the start of COVID soy went up in price and peaked at about $850 per tonne. It has since dropped to below $700, however I have still held off as I think the NZ dollar might rise against the USA and relationships between the USA and China don’t appear that good which might also cause the price to drop (China is USA’s biggest soy customer).

We will have a floating price again this year however we don’t anticipate it changing too much.

Spring Prices 2020 effective from July 1st

High Octane Aoraki Calf Meal        40 x 25kg              $748 + GST ex our yard

Low Protein Aoraki Calf Meal        40 x 25kg               $718 + GST ex our yard

Kind Regards

Ken

It's that time of year again and yes it has come around again all too fast. Been a bit happening in my life, I'm proud to say I am now a Grandad which is awesome. I've leased out all our farm land which is also awesome and has allowed me to get back on the road visiting some customers during autumn. Due to work load in the off season (generally playing catch up with work on the farm) I had not been able to do this for the last two years. And while I haven't visited all customers I certainly have visited quite a number.

I broke my right arm in January while Mountain Biking which stopped me from working for 10 weeks. Have to admit I was a bit casual on bike maintenance, I had been having problems with the front hydraulic brakes on my bike for a month or so but generally I could pump them back up to pressure, however on this day I had brake failure in the rear as well. And as I had started at the top of a steep downhill trail I quickly found out that I needed more than 2 seconds to get them working. As for the brakes they had to be completely replaced, apparently after biking 6000+km they were completely worn out.

Read more: August 2019

I had expected to get all the way through September with the prices we started the season with however with sales up by more than 25% we have had to use free market priced grain from mid-September. And with barley and wheat now costing us on average $55 per tonne above budget I decided to bring the price review forward and make the new price effective for all deliveries after September 23rd.

Read more: October 2017

Some of you will have noticed we have received the new bags and while the quality of the print isn’t at the usual high standard, the quality of the cloth is much better. In past years we have had a number of damaged bags and it’s very frustrating when you fill a bag, weigh it, sew it and only when you stack it onto the pallet you find it has cuts in it. So far there has been hardly any damaged bags which makes the baggers job easier and quicker. By using bags made in China we save over $10 per tonne.

Read more: September 2017