Shawn Goad with PGG secures a cardboard partition with two by fours in a shipping container Tuesday at the Port of Umatilla.<br><i>Staff photo by E.J. Harris</i>

Pendleton Grain Growers started a new mini-shipping program this year.

In addition to loading barges, railroad cars and trucks full of wheat, the cooperative is shipping wheat-filled containers to Korea.

Bryce Olson, a PGG commodity marketer, started looking into the process about a year ago. He researched markets in the Philippines and Vietnam, but hit a dead end.

His groundwork wasn’t for naught, however. When a Korean buyer contacted PGG about ordering container loads of wheat, Olson was ready.

The buyer owns Dunkin’ Donuts, 7-Eleven and Baskin Robbins stores.

“They make bakery items for them,” he said. “They’re looking for supply to meet that need.”

PGG shipped five containers a few months ago, 10 containers in October and Tuesday loaded five more containers – 4,000 bushels – bound for Korea. Olson said the soft white winter wheat is from Umatilla and Union county farms.

Glen Sharp, a PGG millwright, helped the PGG crew at the Port of Umatilla granary prepare to load the five 20-foot-long containers. The workers positioned a Beltveyor beneath a chute from the granary.

Shawn Hays, an employee of CRIS, Inc., which operates the port’s dock, backed an empty container onto the scales, where the Beltveyor transferred the wheat from the granary to the container.

Beforehand, PGG workers wedged a cardboard bulkhead in the back of each container and secured it with kiln-dried 2x4s. The bulkhead, which blocks about three-fourths of the container’s open end, prevents wheat from spilling out when the doors are opened.

Kim Puzey, general manager of the Port of Umatilla, stopped by to watch the workers load the first container. He’s excited about the new venture.

“The original purpose of the Port of Umatilla was to export wheat and to import fuel, and this is another refinement of the original purpose,” he said. “We couldn’t be more pleased for the local growers.”

Shawn Goad of PGG said the crew puts 20 metric tons of wheat, or 44,000 pounds, into each container. That’s 800 bushels per container. It takes the crew about 15 minutes to load each one.

Olson said the Koreans prefer receiving wheat in the smaller, 20-foot-long containers because of highway weight restrictions there and the distance from the port to the flour mill.

“It just helps over there because 20-foot containers are a little bit easier for them to handle,” Olson said.

The advantage of shipping smaller amounts in containers, instead of entire barge loads, is that the customer can get a precise product, in this case, wheat that is 10-11 percent protein.

The buyer, of course, pays a premium for the smaller, select shipments. Olson said the price was “quite a bit above Portland.”

Soft white winter wheat sold for $4.85 per bushel Tuesday in Portland. He said premiums range from 50 cents to $1.50 per bushel.

Shipping 20 “cans” containing 16,000 bushels of wheat this year was a good start for PGG, Olson said. He thinks there’s definitely a future in containerized shipments.

“We’ve talked to four other companies that are interested in us shipping containers,” he said. “It is growing. I could see this easy being 10 percent of our shipments here in five years.”