02/02/05 Vietnam, young people and wheat demand

02/02/05 Vietnam, young people and wheat demand

Farm and Ranch February 2, 2005 One of the countries on the itinerary of a recent U.S. Wheat sponsored team trip to Asia was Vietnam. Randy Suess of Washington was one of two U.S. wheat growers on that trip. He says Vietnam is still a poor country. There are a few cases where mills use only U.S. wheat, but most of the wheat is cheap, low quality grain from China or India. Suess: "And it doesn't make a very good loaf of bread. They have what are called baguettes there and when you crack them open they are pretty hard and porous inside. I think the youth of that country are going to start changing that situation, where Kentucky Fried Chicken, McDonald's and Pizza Huts are moving into that country and the youth are discovering that there is a good loaf of bread out there. And that to make that good loaf of bread you have to have good quality wheat. I think the millers and bakers understand that but of course they are not always the one's making the purchases. This is still a communist country and te government still has a big control over the purchases of that country." Suess says they did visit a bakery that used only U.S. soft white wheat. Suess: "And they made 40 different products just out of soft white wheat. So there was a lot of pastries and decorated cakes." And Suess says soft white wheat is also used to make instant noodles that are exported to other countries in the region like Cambodia and Laos. I'm Bob Hoff and that's the Northwest Farm and Ranch Report on the Northwest Ag Information Network.
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