Bassett & Walker International, which connects farmers with food processors in Latin America, are honoured at the HSBC International Business Awards.
The scope is mind-boggling. Every day, Bassett & Walker International (BWI) buys agricultural commodities from producers in Mexico, and Latin and South America. Then it sells them to processors in some 40 countries. The beef, fish, chicken, pork and soya feed the world; the enzymes and proteins from the dairy side make its drugs. It’s a specialized area—BWI is among only about 100 companies who do half a trillion dollars in trade every year. Still, CEO Nicholas Walker defines it simply. “Say a farmer in Argentina ships a cow to a factory,” he explains. “At the same time, we have a buyer in Japan who wants to sell it to McDonald’s. The producer in Argentina says, ‘Yeah, sell it to Japan, but we want our money right now.’ We pay him in pesos for that beef, which is frozen. We put it on a vessel and ship it to that buyer and he turns it into hamburgers.” At every step, BWI assumes the risk. “If a boat sinks, and that has happened, it is our problem,” Walker says. For his company, the money is in price differentials. For his clients, Walker adds, “The value proposition is enormous.”
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