U.S. Wheat Associates recently held its first Sub-Saharan Africa buyers conference for 20 different countries.

“Africa provides a tremendous opportunity for wheat and U.S. agricultural products as a whole,” said Vince Peterson, president of U.S. Wheat Associates. “Many expect the region to lead the world in import growth over the next 25 years.”

U.S. Wheat aims to work with millers, bakers and end-product manufacturers to increase knowledge of the advantages of all six classes of wheat.

The Sub-Saharan market has great potential based primarily on population growth and a low wheat per capita consumption baseline compared to other regions of the world, said Chad Weigand, U.S. Wheat regional director for Sub-Saharan Africa.

“The challenge will be price, as the majority of these markets are poorer countries where lower price matters more than quality,” Weigand said.

Hard red winter, hard red spring and soft red winter wheats have been the most popular classes of U.S. wheat across Africa. Some hard white wheat is also shipped there, along with limited amounts of durum.

Africa buys about 15 million tons of wheat from all origins, and about 1.5-to-2 million tons from the U.S. In recent years, U.S. exports into Africa dropped because of extreme drought that limited hard red winter wheat supplies and pushed U.S. wheat prices up to an $80 per metric ton premium at times, compared to other regions.

In the current marketing year, the U.S. has sold 765,000 metric tons into Sub-Saharan Africa, the majority to Nigeria, a 170% increase in sales to the region compared to the same time last year.

U.S. Wheat opened an office in Africa in 1992.

“We’ve seen the growth and we’ve seen both opportunities and challenges,” Peterson said. “Getting our customers together in one place to rekindle relationships and build new relationships is something we’ve done in other markets around the world, so we thought it was time for a Sub-Saharan Africa buyers conference, and I think our customers agree.”

The event ran April 9-11 in Cape Town, South Africa.

How do they use the wheat?

Interest and use varies across West Africa, East Africa and Southern Africa, Weigand said. Hard red spring sales have increased as mills use it as an improver in blends with Baltic and Russian wheat.

Hard red winter is in demand for baguettes in Francophone Africa, and hard red winter and hard red spring in pasta production.

Soft red winter is in demand in South Africa and Mozambique for cookie and cracker production.
In East Africa, the flat bread staple is chapati, which uses lower-protein hard red winter and soft red winter wheat.

Soft white wheat

U.S. Wheat continues to work on developing interest in and demand for soft wheats, including soft white wheat primarily grown in the Pacific Northwest, Weigand said.

There are plans this year for projects in Mozambique with soft wheat because of a growing demand for cookies and crackers.

Other activities demonstrated soft white wheat in chapati in East Africa.

U.S. Wheat held a soft wheat specialty flour course in 2022 at the Wheat Marketing Center in Portland with PepsiCo of South Africa, demonstrating the virtues of soft white and soft red winter wheat in cookie, cracker and cake products. Similar work will be done with Mozambique millers and bakers, Weigand said.

“We’ve also discussed a future PNW tour with some flour mills in Nigeria, the most dominant purchaser of soft white wheat in the Sub-Saharan market,” he said.

Discussions

Most of the feedback from customers talked about looking further at the quality received from U.S. wheat in milling and end-product use, Weigand said.

“U.S. wheat is not often the cheapest wheat, and this is a region that frequently looks at the landed price of wheat to their mill as the bottom line,” he said. “Industry members took away that there is value in U.S. wheat that saves the mill money down the road.”

U.S. Wheat hopes to present the conference again in the next two years, Weigand said.

Several baking seminars for South Africa and West African participants will focus on hard red winter and hard red spring quality for bread and baguette production. A milling course in June will focus on improving flour quality while maximizing extraction using U.S. wheat classes.

A procurement course and trade team will help buyers recognize opportunities to purchase U.S. wheat and establish relationships with U.S. suppliers.