CHS Inc., North America's leading farmer-owned cooperative and a global energy, grains and foods company, and InVivo Group, a leading agricultural cooperative group in France, announced May 1 the formation of ICGrain to originate grain from producers in Hungary for export to global food and feed companies.

Assets included in the agreement are the CHS inland silo at Oroshaza, Hungary, and the InVivo river terminal at Baja on the Danube River. ICGrain, which will be equally-owned by CHS and InVivo Group, will manage its own hedging, logistics, quality assurance and barge loading. ICGrain headquarters will be at Budapest, Hungary.

"Our new partnership with InVivo adds tremendous value to our member-owners and customers because it extends CHS grain origination, creates access to additional inland river ports and improves barge delivery to the CHS Silotrans facility at Constanta, Romania, and to other Northern European markets," said Roger Baker, CHS Europe, vice president and general manager, at Geneva, Switzerland.

"InVivo has done business with CHS for several years, and during that time we learned that we share many of the same business objectives, in addition to the fact that CHS and InVivo are both leading cooperative groups within their respective countries," said Jerome Duchalais, deputy managing director of InVivo Group responsible for grain activity. "The creation of ICGrain is in line with the ambitious growth and international expansion strategy adopted by InVivo Group."