Danish entrepreneurs launch their agriculture commodities trading platform in Romania

Commoditrader ApS, a trading platform for agriculture products founded in the spring of 2018 by Danish entrepreneurs Julie Koch Fahler and Ida Boesen, launched operations in Romania on Wednesday, September 4. Romania is the first country in Eastern Europe where this marketplace is available.

The players in the Romanian agricultural sector will be able to use this platform to trade grains and other agricultural commodities and organize their freight. The Commoditrader platform creates better market access in an optimized way, where digitalization limits the distance between buyer and seller and gives the possibility to compare prices and other contractual terms, internally in Romania, and across borders, to increase negotiation power of farmers, and give traders easier market access, according to the company.

“In the agricultural sector, we look at a gap where a lot of farmers are serviced typically by only a few trading houses. When opening the market and giving access to more potential buyers or sellers in the market to sell or buy, we make sure that the farmer and trading house, gets more bids when entering the market,” says Julie Koch Fahler, Co-founder of Commoditrader.

“Today, normally a farmer calls 2-3 traders to ask for prices and terms. In general, you can say, that the more you are asking, the higher chances you have of getting a better price for your goods, and an effective settlement. When Commoditrader is then offering a service that spreads the selling/buying interest, you make sure you get the best price available in the market – also across geographies,” she concludes.

The marketplace is easily accessible by creating a user profile, which can be buyer, seller or both. Once the profile is set up, the user can create a listing to attract attention from buyers or sellers. All prices are listed in the platform, including the cost of freight. The user can choose its own freight provider and the platform will calculate all the logistic costs involved or one can book the freight from the platform. If the buyer and the seller decide on the trade, they can enter into a contract on the platform, all information on counterparties being available before entering the trade.

The platform provides the opportunity of market segmentation, enabling users to create listings visible only to those they are interested to trade with, such as traders with high credit ratings, high turnover, or geographically close.

Commoditrader ApS was founded in the spring of 2018 by Julie Koch Fahler and Ida Boesen, two Danish women, and a group of large Danish farmers with farms in Denmark, Lithuania, and Russia. The Commoditrader.com platform launched in Denmark 4 months ago, and today serves around 15% of the Danish farmers, who account for 40% of the country’s grain production. Commoditrader.com will be launching throughout Eastern Europe during the coming months, starting with Romania.