Liverpool grain terminal’s tracking system meets compliance regulations
After a year of testing, the United Kingdom’s largest grain terminal has moved ahead with regular use of a new grain tracking system.
The system, CommTrac, was developed jointly by the Mersey Docks and Harbour Co. and DB Information Systems in Doncaster for Liverpool’s Seaforth Grain Terminal.
In its first year, CommTrac has contributed to the terminal’s ability to provide grain companies with shipment identity preservation and tracking of more than 1.5 million tons of wheat, corn and soya beans.
Peter Lowe, director of Liverpool for Mersey Docks, said the system can track shippers’ grain “from the farmers field, through the logistics and production chain — including the storage silos at Seaforth Grain Terminal — to the finished product on the supermarket shelf.”
CommTrac manages numerous administrative tasks surrounding grain shipments and automatically e-mails each client a report covering daily transactions and stock levels.
In addition to the Seaforth Grain Terminal, CommTrac was recently introduced to Europe’s largest flat store, the 250,000-square-foot warehouse built by Mersey Docks at Liverpool’s Seaforth Dock for Arkady Feed.
The flatstore was built to hold about 75,000 tons of up to six different types of animal feed. Animal feed from ships is discharged to an 800-meter-long conveyor system running from the berth to the bays within the warehouse, which consists of two sheds and a central covered roadway for truck loading.
Arkady Feed’s manager Paul Casey said the system “offers a faster, simpler operation in complete compliance with the growing mass of regulations” for segregating grain-based commodities.
Grain companies from the United States, Canada and the Iberian Peninsula are sending representatives to the port to review the system, Liverpool port officials said.