Canola has been given a serious shot at the American market, but the president of Dow Agrosciences is telling farmers they need to do their part if the sales campaign is to be successful.
“It’s a balancing act,” Jim Wispinski said during Crop Production Week in Saskatoon. “We sell the restaurant industry on canola oil and then we need to be able to supply them.”
Wispinski said Dow has worked to sell the American food industry on its high oleic canola oil, Natreon, made with Nexera canola.
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The high stability oil has a long frying life and without trans fats it can displace partially hydrogenated soybean oil.
The recent American push to eliminate trans fat from foods is creating a 9.1 billion pound gap in that market for cooking oil, the equivalent of 15 million acres of canola.
“We won’t get it all. But we will get a piece of it,” Wispinski said.
Several large Ame-rican cities appear to be following New York’s lead, banning trans fats in restaurant food, including Louisville, Kentucky and Los Angeles.
Some California school divisions have banned trans fats from snacks sold on school property.
“Ten percent of American teens have high cholesterol, one in eight kids there have two or more risk factors for heart disease,” Wispinski said.
“Canola as food has never had a better year when it comes to consumer exposure. We’ve had a record number of media impressions about canola, which means that many Americans have not only heard of it, but have a positive impression.”
The move away from trans fats is good for Canadian producers, but Wispinski said producers need to contract in numbers that will support the product.
Japan and the European Union are also looking at the high oleic oil, but they are concerned about the grower acceptance, he said.
However, palm and soybean oil are fighting back with new products and marketing pushes that Wispinski said will place a time limit on the current opportunity.
To illustrate the point, the November commodity market premium on canola over soy was nine cents, but last week it had already fallen as low as six cents.
