Korean wheat test team at Wheat Marketing Center

Korea Honorary Consul-General Robert W. Donaldson and Wheat Marketing Center Chair Philip Isaak present certificates to Korean wheat test team at Wheat Marketing Center

Portland, OR (April 30, 2003) Most corporate board meetings are filled with discussion regarding business plans, marketing, sales, profit/loss statements, and what the economy is doing with projections from crystal balls of what it's going to do.

The biannual board meeting at the Wheat Marketing Center had a lot of those ingredients.

A major exception at this year's Spring meeting was interactive, hands-on participation with a team from Korea test driving U.S. wheat in the making of steamed buns, and developing an evaluation protocol.

This board is made up of wheat growers/farmers, a flour milling company executive, port authority people (Portland and Vancouver, USA), a grain export company executive, and others all people deeply involved in the grain industry, and in domestic grain trade.

The Board worked alongside the Korean Team, took part in product demonstrations, reviewing flour stream results and the cooking/steaming process, and taste-testing the steamed buns.

Steamed buns, a major confectionery product in Korea, were produced using U.S. Hard Red Winter, Hard Red Spring, and Soft White wheat blends and Hard White wheat samples. The confections are filled with sweetened red bean paste.

The five-member wheat industry technical team from Korea completed the week-long technical course where a new evaluation protocol was developed for this major use of wheat in Korea. Using U.S. Hard and Soft White wheat flours, the team evaluated eight U.S. wheat samples. Seven U.S. Hard White wheats made better Korea-style steamed buns than the control.

The team demonstrated the steamed bun protocol, along with their final report, to the Wheat Marketing Center's Board of Directors.

Korea's Honorary Consul-General Robert W. Donaldson, Portland and Wheat Marketing Center Board Chairperson Philip Isaak, a member of the Washington Wheat Commission, presented certificates of completion to team members that included two steam bun manufacturers, an instructor from the Korean Baking School, a miller, and a U.S. Wheat Associates representative in Korea.

More than twelve international wheat industry teams have signed up for Wheat Marketing Center technical courses and will be testing U.S. wheat during 2003. Teams scheduled come from Algeria, Central and South America, China, Japan, Korea, Southeast Asia, Taiwan, and The Philippines.

All courses are customized to meet the needs of each team and participants will engage in collaborative, hands-on learning to try out different wheat classes, varieties and blends to see how they perform in an array of specific wheat-based products that are unique to each country. Also, participants will learn about wheat purchase specifications and the U. S. wheat marketing system.

Communicating across all these cultures and languages presents no problem for the Wheat Marketing Center's experienced multicultural technical staff, who speak Bosnian, Catalan, Chinese, English, French, German, Japanese, Korean, Sesotho, Spanish, and Vietnamese. Courses have been arranged by U. S. Wheat Associates in collaboration with the Wheat Marketing Center.

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