Dale Royer, grain buyer for The Scoular Co. said that the company has been extremely pleased with their acquisition of the Global Materials barge loading port in Helena. The company has been in business operating grain elevators for over a century expanding their merchandising business to five continents with more than 500 products.

Their size is unique in their industry. They are small enough to work with customers person-to-person in local markets, but big enough to ship goods around the globe. Scoular currently ranks 122nd on the Forbes list of the top 500 privately held corporations in the U.S.

Scoular buys and sells a full range of agricultural products - everything from traditional and specialty crops to food and feed ingredients. They also store, handle, import and export working with transportation companies around the world shipping products by rail, truck, container, barge and vessel. They use a variety of risk management tools to help protect their customers in an often volatile environment.

Royer said that during the winter months the farmers begin selling their storage grain, which is currently being loaded onto barges, shipped to New Orleans, then loaded onto ocean-going vessels. A barge can hold 2,300 tons or 76,650 bushels of soybeans.

"Water-borne transportation is the cheapest method of shipping from interior points to the port of New Orleans. Also, it's a natural resource literally right at our front door" said Royer.

Scoular is primarily located in the western grain belt with offices in Kansas City, Kansas and Omaha, Neb. Their Helena and Pine Bluff facilities are the first venture into the Mid-South.

The No.1 farm product loaded is soybeans, followed by rice, corn, wheat and milo.

Scoular buys grain directly from area producers and also offers trucking services to pick grain up at bins and offer very competitive prices for all grain and for shipment. They also offer marketing information and give farmers guidance to help market their crops.

The company has two docks in order to load two barges at the same time with two different commodities or to load two barges of the same commodity at the same time.

"We are pleased to be a part of the Helena-West Helena community and part of the Delta economy," said Royer.