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WISHH, Northern Crops Institute reach out to potential soybean export customers

The World Initiative for Soy in Human Health (WISHH) is working with the Northern Crops Institute (NCI) training potential foreign customers on soy food and feed. The mission is to reach end users, said Alan Poock, Asia Division Director for the WISHH program.

“How to use soy in animal feed rations, [which is] more instructional,” Poock told Brownfield Ag News, “but also sharing the many different ways of how soy can be used in food applications.”

What WISHH and NCI are doing Poock characterizes as humanitarian with a long-term view of developing a higher volume market.

“It takes a lot of training, education and just patience as we move them along trying soy for a while and then becoming regular users of soy,” he said.

This particular joint effort by WISHH and (NCI) is supported by the soy checkoff boards in the Dakotas, Minnesota and Michigan.

“NCI’s team had to convert our face-to-face training courses and materials into webinars, videos, updated manuals and more so we could deliver knowledge about soy protein to WISHH’s entrepreneurs in their home countries,” said NCI Director Mark Jirik, quoted in a news release. “The trainees’ responses to surveys show that they gained new solutions that can help them progress until in-person training at NCI is once again an option.”

An example is WISHH and NCI hosting a two-day webinar workshop for food and beverage trade teams in several Latin American countries.

WISHH works in developing and emerging markets where they might not have used soy or know of its benefits. The organization teaches the use of soy in place of other protein sources and the use of soy protein in human foods