ATP Helps Show Philippine Bakers the Power to Demand U.S. Wheat Flour

U.S. Wheat Associates (USW) works to help wheat food companies expand product lines in which U.S. wheat classes have an advantage. This strategy demonstrates that bakers have the power to demand flour products made with imported U.S. wheat and helps increase total wheat consumption. From February 2021 through July 2022, USW leveraged its regional technical expertise and Agricultural Trade Promotion (ATP) funds to expose Philippine bakers to production methods and new products from South Korea.

Webinars on Korean Wheat Foods

USW hosted three webinars in February, May and June 2021 featuring baking demonstrations of trendy Korean baked goods with USW Seoul Food/Bakery Technologist, David Oh. Oh taught popular U.S. wheat flour Korean bread and confectionary product recipes formulated for the Philippine market. Nearly 2,000 Philippine commercial bakers participated and through surveys most said they could apply the recipes in their business. USW has identified 12 Philippines bakery retailers that added products from the seminars made with U.S. wheat flour.

In July 2022, USW technical staff serving the Philippines and South Korea organized and held a comprehensive bakery workshop in Seoul in cooperation with the Korea Baking School. The purpose again was to familiarize Philippine millers and bakers with Korean-baked products, recipe formulations, and production methods.  As a result of the workshop, four of the participants created a total of eight new bakery products made with flour milled from U.S. hard red spring (HRS) and soft white (SW) that are still on sale.

The Philippines remains the largest importer of HRS and SW in the world and, including hard red winter imports, purchases a total average annual volume of about 3 million metric tons of U.S. wheat.