Ukraine is a non GMO country and has the largest corn crop in Europe. Growing GMO hybrids is not allowed. The agricultural infrastructure is based on large farms which allow us to manage a very efficient high quality corn procurement.

 

Growing Area

Altera has a specific corn procurement department with two specialists having a full time engagement for the best quality of corn supply.

Year after year, we have been selecting a reliable number of farmers, located all over Ukraine. Such diversification of origin of our corn allows us to split the risks and to guarantee the food grade corn supply through the different seasons.

Every year we advise our suppliers a list of corn hybrids that have been previously tested in our laboratory and that we consider the ideal ones both for the milling process and particularly for the extrusion potential at our customers’ sites.

We only procure our corn directly from farms and this makes our supply chain unique. After harvest, we get samples from all the production batches. Such samples are taken to our internal laboratory, which performs a complete set of analysis and evaluates their potential. Only the corn that successfully passed the laboratory tests are acquired.

Afterwards, the corn is received batch by batch at our operation in Cherkassy; before the acceptance of the product, we get a sample of each truck, on which our internal laboratory performs further quality analysis; in case of non-conformities, the goods are rejected. The corn is then stored in our new and state of the art storage center.

Our corn is grown in the following areas:

• Cherkasy
• Poltava
• Kirovohrad
• Kiev
• Chernihiv

 

Corn quality

Each gritz and flour requires its own corn quality. This is way we are using different type of corn. Virtuousness, color, kernel size, processing performance both in the milling process and in the finished products process, mycotoxins contents, are the main features.

The main drivers to obtain the corn quality we have targeted are:

• Environment
• Corn hybrids
• Agricultural practices
• Drying and storing process