Wheat Exports Australia has been meeting in Canberra this week and announced Cargill Australia, Elders Toepfer Grain, Goodman Fielder Consumer Foods, Grain Pool and OzEpulse as the first five companies to be accredited to export wheat under the new licencing arrangements.

AWB, Emerald and ABB were among the companies surprisingly not present on the list.

Minister for Agriculture, Tony Burke, today met with the board of the new industry regulator and said WEA would continue to assess other applications at their meetings in the coming days and weeks.

"The goal of this major economic reform was always to provide more choice for growers," Mr Burke said.

"I emphasised to WEA the importance of making decisions on applications for accreditation in a timely way to allow growers to make decisions about who will export their wheat."

WEA's acting chief executive officer, Peter Woods, said processing exporter accreditations and the transition from the single desk arrangement to liberalised bulk wheat exports has been a priority for WEA since it commenced operation on 1 July 2008.

"We appreciate the need for exporters, growers and the industry to know as soon as possible who has been accredited and have been very focused on assessing the applications in a rigorous and timely manner," Mr Woods said.

To become accredited under the scheme, exporters are required to demonstrate they are fit and proper through satisfying a specific eligibility criteria.