From staff reports OKLAHOMA CITY – Andrew Hoelscher, president of Farm Strategy, discussed improving the wheat industry during the recent Organic Crop Improvement Association/ Oklahoma Genetics Incorporated meeting.
“We at Farm Strategy build ingredient-based supply chains, so we work with those down stream-based customers, the mills a nd the bakers, and we figure out what quality wheat is worth to them, and how do we drive that value all the w ay back down to the pr oducer and the seedsman to improve the industry overall,” Hoelscher said.
He added that Farm Strategy conducts bakery trials, aiming to remove additives, improve bread quality and more.
Hoelscher said Dr. Brett Carver, Regents professor and Wheat Genetics chair at Oklahoma State University’s Department of Plant and Soil Sciences, has been instru mental in these trials .
“What Dr. Carver has developed is definitely driving value in the industry and building good supply chains in the future,” Hoelscher said.
Hoelscher’s spoke on the cost-stack of wheat. Typically, Hoelscher said, the wheat producer is paid per pound, while other parts of the supply chain increase the products value.
“As we build out that cost-stack, that additive market that is currently added to our flour that we produce on the farm is of tremendous value at about $29 billion globally,” he said. “So , if we can take some of that value and push it back down to the pr oduction system, so we are providing via an ingredient, something that eliminates additives from them, then we become a c lean label source. We become additive reduction sources. We become that supplier of choice to build the long-term supply chain that is needed.”
Hoelscher noted that communication is a big issue within the supply chain. “Historically, the seedsman has sold a seed that is based upon yield to a farmer, and that farmer can do with it whatever he wants,” said Hoelscher. “With these unique genetics that drive value at the end use, we have to be able to control where that wheat goes to, and we have to make sure the person downstream from us is very good at how the y store it and that they are very clear on how they are going to use it or not use it a nd that they are going to pay us for the value that is created by it.”
Hoelscher spoke of an OSU/Kansas State collaboration on wheat genetics, as Brett Carver is working on a hig h-protein soft wheat that acts like a hard wheat. “In general, soft wheats hold the protein looser than hard wheats,” Hoelscher said. “ The ability to take a soft wheat and separate the starch from the protein or something like that has po tential when you look at maybe some plant-based protein stuff; maybe there are some functionality pieces that are out there, so uti lizing that difference to figure out how we create value with it.”