The workshop was designed to teach the team how to better manage their supply chain challenges and how to write contracts that accurately specify the wheat they want to purchase.
“In South Asia, our most important markets are the Philippines and Indonesia,” said Steve Wirsching, director of the U.S. Wheat Associates West Coast office. “The Philippines has long been a very important market for U.S. hard red spring wheat (HRS) and U.S. wheat in general, buying about 2 million metric tons each year, as compared to Indonesia, which is an up-and-coming market that purchased 830 thousand metric tons last year. Indonesia is not a new market for us, but we are seeing increased spring wheat sales driven by economic growth and wheat consumption.
“At this workshop, we brought together the quality control personnel and the purchasing departments from four mills. Typically, the quality control department wants the highest quality, and often times, the most expensive wheat; whereas the purchasing group and the accountants want the cheapest wheat. We at USW are promoting the idea that they need to work together as a team to figure out these problems. Buying the cheapest wheat doesn’t give you the best value, while buying the best quality wheat doesn’t necessarily give you the best value either. We teach them about how quality is measured and why it is important to end-use performance.”
Participants learned about wheat quality testing and procurement through lectures and end product evaluation. Workshop topics included U.S. wheat market overview; world and U.S. wheat supply and demand overview; understanding analytical tests for flour and dough quality; functionality test demonstrations; inland logistics; end product evaluations and relationships to physical, chemical, and functional lab tests; wheat class differences and similarities between U.S. and competitors; developing a wheat value matrix; and purchase quality specifications.
The group also toured Jay Nord’s farm near Wolverton, Minnesota, U.S. They were hosted by Manager Curt Bjertness as they toured the Wolverton C-W Valley Co-op Elevator.
NCI Director Mark Weber said, “The Northern Crops Institute has enjoyed a long and fruitful relationship with our friends in the Philippines and Indonesia. This past week’s workshop was another example of the outstanding cooperation in market development efforts that exist with companies in this region of the world. As part of this workshop, we did side-by-side baking demonstrations, comparing flours from other parts of the world to the Hard Red Spring Wheat (HRS) grown in our region of the U.S. Once again our northern-grown HRS showed excellent quality and results.
The workshop was coordinated by John Crabtree, NCI assistant director.
