The Raghavan Report Asia’s food future: A fresh perspective Beer, Brexit and blockchain by Raghavan (‘Ragha’) Sampathkumar When talking about diversity, Asia is really endowed with its diverse food culture and traditional practices. Similarly, it is extremely diverse in terms of agroclimatic zones that help produce a great variety of crops and some (e.g. cassava) that have great potential to be included in a wide variety of foods are not known well outside the region. Lately, protein gained enormous attention and particularly vegetable sources (e.g. pulses) have become quite popular across the world. Ever since the UN announced 2016 as the International Year of Pulses, globally interest from different industry stakeholders grew exponentially, specifically on how to use pulses as sources of protein and also for other special (e.g. gluten-free) products. Recently I stumbled upon one of the most surprising innovations and it is revealed at the end of this column. While the next most talked about issue globally was Brexit and what happens next for the countries that trade with EU ASEAN countries, which export huge quantities of seafood to the EU. As the call to exit has been sounded, it remains to be seen whether the countries will realign their positions and trade relationships during the process which is said to be taking at least a couple of years. Largely, there has been an understanding that the trade relationships with UK will remain unaffected, if not grow. One of the indicators of such a move came from China, who are trying to rebuild the erstwhile “Silk road” that flourished during the Han dynasty, linking the country with its Asian and European neighbours. The first freight train carrying UK’s export products such as whisky, baby food and pharmaceuticals was flagged off last week and started its 7500-mile journey to Zhejiang in Eastern China. This perhaps partly explains the way the world’s multilateral trade is getting realigned as countries look to strengthen bi-lateral ties or agreements with fewer countries with mutually-rewarding trade pacts. On the other hand, UK seems actively looking to cement its place in global trade, as it is known as the hub for many industries including finance. The next buzzword happens to be blockchain technology and its applications in agricultural commodity trade. While it is still under the experimentation stage with a limited-scope, the “distributed ledger” principle is said to have the potential to greatly improve some of the persistent problems of the agricultural supply chains. These include things such as lack of transparency, time delays, propensity for malpractices and limited information capture and use by the value chain entities. While there are some companies in Australia already pursuing the technology to make their supply chains efficient, its application in Asia with its majority small fragmented landholders needs to be studied. Well, its time perhaps to reveal the answer to the question. A South-Australian brewery recently launched a beer made from mixing lentils (30%) with barley (70%) giving it a unique earthly flavour. Indeed, as a food and agribusiness professional, it is exciting for me to see the food industry that is abuzz with innovations! Raghavan (‘Ragha’) Sampathkumar is a seasoned food and agribusiness professional with 360 degree understanding of the complex political, socioeconomic, environmental and cultural perspectives of the Agri-Food value chain. He has more than 13 years of experience working in various subsectors of food & agribusiness including agro commodities, international trade, agri-inputs, biotech, and animal nutrition sectors across Asia-Pacific. 20 | May 2017 - Milling and Grain
Profit Value Calculator app launch
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new tool that helps customers calculate feed mill profitability improvements has been released. Kemin, a global nutritional ingredient company that uses science to create solutions for half the world’s population, has launched the MillSMART™ Profit Value Calculator to help feed mill professionals easily evaluate the economic returns of incorporating the programme into their operations. The programme preconditioning solution uniformly disperses and penetrates feed, providing a positive impact on feed mill production parameters and significant economic benefits. Carmen Coetzee, Associate Product Manager, Kemin Animal Nutrition and Health explains, “We created the Profit Value Calculator to help feed mill professionals visualise the economic benefits the programme can provide their business.” She continues, “With just one click, the tool provides a complete picture of the programme’s collective impact and individual key performance indicators (KPIs), such as feed weight, pellet durability index, energy and throughput.” To use the tool, users simply enter their feed mill and lab parameters for both a control treatment and MillSMART. The app provides a side-by-side comparison of the net savings and individual KPI savings. KP Philip, President of Kemin Animal Nutrition and Health boasts, “This is an ideal way to show the tangible potential the programme offers feed mill producers. With this app the feed mill is no longer seen as a cost centre, but a tool to optimise the feed value and quality while optimising feed mill processing productivity.”