Barges guided into berth by tugboats, shuttle-trains of a seemingly endless supply of cars and massive ocean vessels guided in and out of the tumultuous mouth of the Columbia River – all part of daily activity for port cities like Portland in the Pacific Northwest. Equally as bustling, the staff members in the West Coast Office of U.S. Wheat Associates (USW) were especially busy in mid-September, with several sets of international customers visiting to see and discuss the wheat they purchase.
NCI Course Participants Explore PNW Export Channels
Before Monday morning even started, a team of Southeast Asian grain buyers arrived in Portland following the completion of the Grain Procurement Short Course for Importers, which USW conducts annually in partnership with the Northern Crops Institute (NCI) at North Dakota State University (NDSU) in Fargo, North Dakota.
Customers from every region of the world attend the course for an in-depth education on wheat procurement strategies, risk management and navigating the U.S. supply chain. Lectures cover a wide range of topics, including hedging and options, U.S. wheat quality and value and rail logistics.
Following a week in Fargo, the team from Southeast Asia traveled to Portland for the final piece of the puzzle — an in-depth look into the U.S. supply chain infrastructure and grain marketing system. Seeing firsthand how grain moves from a farmer’s field in North Dakota to the export elevators near Portland helped the coursework click as the team prepared to take all that they had learned home to their base operations.
Japanese Technical Team Checks Out Club Wheat
On Tuesday, USW staff welcome a team of Japanese customers after their initial stop in Washington. While many Japanese teams regularly travel to the PNW, this team was specifically focused on a single topic – club wheat.
Club wheat is a sub-class of U.S. soft white (SW) wheat, which is blended up to 20% with SW under the designation of Western White wheat. Japan imports more club wheat than any other country for use in confectionery products like sponge cakes and biscuits.
Demand for club wheat is stable, and Japanese customers find value in the premium they pay for Western White. As a result, teams like this one come to the PNW to discuss the production and quality of the current year’s crop and explore how the industry is developing new and improved varieties to meet the flour needs of Japan’s sophisticated baking and wheat foods industry.
Contracting for Wheat Value Workshop Kicks Off in Portland
The final group to arrive in Portland for the week kicked off a Contracting for Wheat Value Workshop, one of the core educational programs USW offers. The program is designed to help customers gain knowledge of supply chain management and how to write tenders for U.S. wheat that will yield the greatest return on their investment.
Representatives from mills in Singapore, Indonesia, Thailand and the Philippines attended the workshop to better understand the quality characteristics of U.S. wheat, the shipping logistics between rail and barge and how different flours compare for specific end products. The most important part of the course, however, is learning the specifications in purchasing contracts and how each customer can extract the optimal value from each purchase of U.S. wheat.
After meeting with the PNW grain trade and the Wheat Marketing Center, the team headed to Fargo for another round of coursework in supply and demand, laboratory testing, inland logistics and flour mill management.
Regardless of the market represented or the program’s specific aim, the USW West Coast Office staff traversed the city and the surrounding area to maximize each team’s experience in the United States. And each team participant left the PNW with a better understanding of the quality and reliability of the U.S. wheat supply chain, as well as the knowledge and connections needed to ensure they receive exactly the wheat they need.