Whole Oats: export from Canada to ASEAN

Whole oats are bought either for milling or for feed, and the two conversations share almost nothing. A miller is buying groat yield: how much usable oat comes out after dehulling, which depends on kernel size, plumpness, hull percentage and test weight. A feed buyer is buying energy and price.

The mismatch to avoid is buying a milling specification for a feed application, or contracting a feed-grade lot for a mill and discovering the yield is uneconomic. State the intended use when you enquire; it is the single variable that changes the quote most.

Canadian oats are grown across the prairies with a single annual harvest, and quality varies between seasons in the usual way. Test weight and screenings are the practical proxies for milling quality and should be contract terms rather than expectations.

Where the buyer intends to mill locally, the routing and pack format decision follows from the mill’s intake capability: bulk into a silo and bagged into a smaller operation are different cost bases entirely.