TOUGH global trading conditions have hurt CBH on the balance sheet with its marketing and trading arm recording a loss of $16.7 million.
However, the co-operative was still able to maintain an overall profit of $82.7m as outlined in its annual report released last week.
This profit is down from $149.2m in 2014 when growers delivered a record harvest of 15.9 million tonnes and collected record rebates of $4.55 a tonne.
Rebates for 2015 will equate to $1.05 per tonne for each grower following a 13.6mt harvest.
This equates to an Operations Rebate of $0.85 and an Investment Rebate of $0.20.
CBH chief executive officer Andy Crane said the 2015 profit was historically a good number only reflecting lower than the year before because of a smaller tonnage and tougher marketing and trading conditions for soft commodities worldwide.
"You'll see in 2014 we had 15.9mt harvest as the biggest crop ever and perhaps 50 per cent above an average crop, so it's (this year's profit) bound to be lower than that," he said.
"It was impacted by tonnes and marketing and trading for sure and it's been a very tough year in Australia for all marketers.
"You'll struggle to find any that will have made a profit, I know many will be reporting losses this year.
"I suppose the only silver lining is that it's demonstrating the really strong competition for grain amongst the marketers and the growers are getting the benefit of that really strong competition.
"Although prices generically are lower it's a very competitive market."
CBH increased its infrastructure spending in 2015 from $153.5m to $174.m and Dr Crane said this indicated the focus the co-operative has on maintaining its network.
He said rebates were down on 2014, but growers should consider these the "cherry on the cake" on top of large capital investments to WA infrastructure that save them money long term.
"Our focus is reinvestment in the network and in growth of the business to generate income for the business and investment rebates," he said.
"It's a very good feature of the co-operative that it can compete effectively with other players and also provide growers with rebates of charges.
"A good co-operative rewards patronage and our intent is to show our growers that when you look at a profit number you need to rest assured that all that money remains in the control and for the use of our growers."
Investments were also made in several new growth opportunities in 2015, according to CBH chairman Wally Newman, including the acquisition of Blue Lake Milling for $40.7m in July, the launch of a fertiliser business and opening a new office in Russia.
"We've focused on lowering our costs, driving better prices and generating greater returns from investments," he said.
"The continued investment in the network is certainly paying off through efficiencies in the supply chain.
"We saw a record 1mt delivered to Chadwick in the Esperance zone, largely because of these investments.
"We invested $51m into our ports which play a significant role in ensuring WA growers remain competitive by being able to get their grain onto ships when their customers want it."
Interflour, of which CBH owns 50pc of operations, returned $8.4m for the 12 months, down from $12.1m in 2014.
During 2015, CBH developed a network proposal to optimise its supply chain, taking into account costs from paddock to port.
This network proposal was discussed at length at the 90 pre-harvest meetings and the board received feedback from the growers present.
Dr Crane said changes in grower size and truck sizes had already created a natural optimisation process, highlighting there are inefficiencies with maintaining 190 sites.
"We can spread our capital and maintenance over 190 sites but we don't believe that will deliver them the most efficient system for the vast majority of growers," he said.
"We believe with the change in grower size and truck size that there is a more efficient network that's there in growers' interests.
"This is not about CBH's interests it's about the interests of our growers.
"We're already starting to see that naturally where in modest harvest years we have sites that are closed and only open in very large years.
"It will ultimatley allow us to keep fees under control and limit their increases far better by managing the network more efficiently."
Dr Crane said the next phase of the process would be released to growers in the coming months.
CBH remained the nation's largest exporter of grain exporting about 30pc of Australia's grain and delivering more than 6mt to international customers.
It accumulated more than 50pc of the WA crop in 2014-15, equating to 6.5mt.
In the third year of publishing CBH executive salaries, the report outlined that on top of his $865,000 base salary, Dr Crane also received a retention bonus of $182,000.
Mr Newman received $171,350 in director's fees and deputy chairman Vern Dempster, $114,233.
