Canadian wheat is becoming more valuable to bakers in El Salvador as the Central American nation’s food industry industrializes.
“They need more consistency in the flour,” said Oscar Villalobos, production manager of Molinos Modernos in El Salvador.
Until recently the country’s small bakers had been able to tinker with their machinery to compensate for quality shortfalls in the flour they received.
But with modern, high efficiency equipment now common, the bakers can’t afford to stop or slow production to monkey with the controls.
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They need to know that the flour they receive is consistent.
For Villalobos’ company, that means making sure the wheat it buys is what it is supposed to be, and that means often favouring Canadian over U.S. wheat.
“They say one percent or two percent of impurities, and you get maybe three or four percent,” Villalobos said about wheat from the United States, which is his main source.
“Here in Canada the wheat is more clean.”
Villalobos was in Winnipeg recently for a wheat millers program at the Canadian International Grains Institute.
About 70 to 80 percent of the wheat his company uses is American, but Canadian wheat, which is more expensive, is used to blend up the flour to the standard the bakers want.
“The price is more high here in Canada, but the quality is more high,” he said.
