News

Highland Plant Draws World Interest

Highland, IL – Chinese and Mexican importers had different motives for touring the Trouw Nutrition plant Monday.

 

Interpreter Hailey Hue said the group of 13 Chinese grain buyers, who were mostly from the Guangdong Province in Southern China, are interested in corn production and distribution because corn prices in China are rapidly increasing.

 

“In Guangdong, they don’t produce any corn, but they do have ports that can import easily from other countries,” Hue said.  “So one of the main purposes is to see that quality and enterprise of U.S. corn because they foresee in the next two or three years that they will import a lot of ears of corn.”

 

Amparo Garza-Lang said the 15 visitors from Mexico and other Central American countries did come to the Highland plant to learn about its operations.

 

“We’re interested in them to buy,” said Garza-Lang, who serves as a Spanish interpreter for the Illinois Department of Agriculture.  “What we do afterward is to see what they want to buy.  In our past experiences, they buy what they like.”

 

The 40,000-square-foot Highland plant and warehouse was the first stop in this year’s Illinois Grain Tour.  The Illinois Department of Agriculture initiated the annual weeklong tour of Illinois grain processors and distributors in 1996.

 

The 28 guests visiting Highland on Monday were recruited from the department’s trade offices in Hong Kong and Mexico City.

 

The department’s international marketing representative, Terry English, said the department’s goal is to showcase the state’s agriculture and agribusinesses and attempt to create business opportunities abroad.  As the nation’s leading producer and exporter of soybeans and second-largest in corn, English said Illinois is an attractive state to foreign importers.

 

“The business these people represent is very important to the Illinois producers,” English said.  “What I try to emphasize is that we can supply whatever their need is.  They need not to compete with us.  That is my goal here.  We’re not here to sell our technology to them, but to demonstrate that we can supply what their needs are.”

 

Trouw Nutrition director of marketing Leendert Van Den Broeck also said this is a good way to meet potential international buyers.

 

“It was a good way to show the people to get them aware of our products,” Van Den Broeck said.  “It may result in additional business for us.”

 

Trouw Nutrition processes and distributes grains, nutrients such as lysine, and additives such as salmon for domestic pet food around the world.  The company is a subsidiary of international animal nutrition company Nutreco, based in the Netherlands.

 

Published on October 11, 2005, Page 5B, Belleville News-Democrat, The (IL)

 

For more information, contact Belleville News Democrat reporter Will Buss at 618-345-7822 ext. 24 or send email to: wbuss@bnd.com.