Your Investment in South East Asia

The Minnesota Soybean Research & Promotion Council (MSR&PC) International Marketing Committee met on Wednesday, Dec. 10 and was honored to have John Lindblom, ASA's International Marketing Asia Region Director, as a guest speaker. Lindblom summarized projects that the MSR&PC helped fund this past year.

Lindblom began by discussing the challenges his department faced at the beginning of their fiscal year. The bombing in Bali and the spread of SARS prompted heightened security and a virtual freeze of all travel for several months preventing many projects from beginning as planned. Fierce competition also came from both Brazil and Argentina for market share of soymeal.

Lindblom noted that Indonesia favors #1 beans from the U.S. because of their cleanliness. Soybeans are used to create tempeh, a traditional food staple in their country. The annual consumption rate is 1.8 mmt. Several programs utilizing soy are underway in Indonesia that benefits not only the U.S. soybean market, but also the health of Indonesian children.

The School Soy Milk Program is established in 900 schools with over 220,000 children participating. Using either isolated soy protein or soymeal, children receive soy milk several times a week. Lindblom said that this is the first known program of its kind in the world.

With the success of the School Soy Milk Program, soy enriched noodles have also been introduced in school food programs. Soy flour is used to enrich noodles that are given as snacks for school children. This program is designed to supplement the Soy Milk Program and has huge potential to become a highly popular commercial item.