Cereals Canada officials recently visited Kenya in an attempt to re-establish face-to-face relationships with foreign buyers
After an interruption of nearly three years caused by COVID-19, Cereals Canada was back on the road last month, spreading the word to foreign grain millers about the value and quality of Canadian-grown wheat.
In September, a team of technical experts from Cereals Canada travelled to Nairobi, Kenya, to facilitate a training workshop for wheat millers from six African countries.
Dean Dias, chief executive officer with Cereals Canada, said the workshop attracted some big hitters from the African milling industry and was a successful step toward re-establishing face-to-face relationships with foreign buyers of Canadian wheat.
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The Nairobi workshop was the first time in nearly three years that the Winnipeg-based organization has offered an overseas training program.
“It was definitely an exciting (opportunity) for us because it’s been almost three years since we’ve done any outbound technical support work for our overseas customers,” Dias said in an Oct. 3 interview.
“This workshop marked our return to in-country programming and hands-on technical training, which had been suspended since the beginning of the pandemic,” added Norbert Cabral, milling manager with Cereals Canada.
“It was an exciting week, both for our team and the 14 millers and quality assurance managers who took part in the program.”
According to Dias, the COVID-19 pandemic caused a significant disruption to Cereals Canada’s technical support programming.
Prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, much of Cereals Canada’s work was conducted in Canada, using the organization’s state-of-the-art milling and baking facilities in Winnipeg.
Foreign users of Canadian wheat would be flown into Canada and would visit farms and grain terminals before attending technical workshops in Winnipeg.
Pre-pandemic visitors would leave Canada with a better understanding of the Canadian wheat value chain, its quality assurance systems and the industry’s sustainability initiatives.
Visitors would also receive face-to-face support on how to best incorporate Canadian wheat into their own milling and baking operations.
But the COVID-19 pandemic forced Cereals Canada to look for new ways to deliver its programming, said Dias.
In addition to expanding its on-line resources and webinar offerings, Cereals Canada also recognized that bringing users of Canadian wheat to Canada had limitations.
“It can be hard to bring some of these customers into Canada and get them visas and so on,” Dias said.
“It’s sometimes easier for us to go into those marketplaces, although we do have to make sure that their equipment and facilities are (adequate)….”
The training program in Nairobi was held at the African Milling School, a professional training facility that trains millers for Africa and the Middle East.
The Cereals Canada workshop included technical sessions and discussions related to wheat milling, blending and flour quality.
It emphasized the benefits of using Canadian wheat and included activities that focused on analytical testing, milling and blending techniques, and the benefits of baking with Canadian flour.
Canadian wheat exports to sub-Saharan Africa grew by about 500,000 tonnes between 2012 and 2020.
The increase was driven largely by population growth in Nigeria, Canada’s largest wheat import market in the region.
Canadian Western red spring wheat makes up most of Canada’s wheat exports to Africa.
Dias said African millers typically blend high quality Canadian milling wheat with lower quality wheat that’s sourced from other parts of the world, including the Black Sea region.
This year, exports of Black Sea wheat have been interrupted by the war in Ukraine, leaving some African millers scrambling to find other suppliers.
It is possible that African demand for higher quality Canadian wheat could increase because of interruptions to the wheat trade in the Black Sea region.
“CWRS is typically purchased to add strength in blends with lower strength, lower-priced wheats (from) other origins,” said Dias.
“With the large amount of lower quality wheat being imported into Africa, providing technical support and understanding of the excellent functional quality of wheat that comes from Canada continues to be a high priority.”
Chinedu Epeuchi, an assistant miller at Crown Flour Mills in Nigeria, said Canadian CWRS has a reputation as one of the best milling wheats available.
“CWRS makes life better for me as a miller — it is one of the best wheats in the world,” said Epeuchi.
“We make use of Canadian wheat a lot so (I attended the workshop) to get an idea of the milling and baking properties of the wheat, and to understand how to better make use of Canadian wheat.”
