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Written by Truth About Trade & Technology
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Tuesday, 08 September 2009 14:16 |
Des Moines Register
September 6, 2009
Des Moines Register
By DAN PILLER
September 6, 2009
Iowa City, Ia. - The soybean harvest that will begin later this month is expected to produce more ammunition for Iowa farmers in the battle with olive and canola oils for the low-fat and zero-trans-fat oil markets.
Asoyia of Iowa City expects to be able to at least triple the production of what it calls "ultra low linolenic" soybean oil, which contains only 1 percent linolenic acid, vs. the 3 percent levels in most of the low linolenic oils on the market.
A reduction in an oil's linolenic acid increases its shelf life and helps the oil better withstand cooking heat.
The object is to defend soybeans' dominance of the vegetable oil market. The new beans will produce cooking oils that are without trans fats and are low in saturated fats but also have the long shelf life and hardier cooking characteristics under heat that the traditional hydrogenated vegetable oils do.
"We have increased the acreage for producing our soybeans from 25,000 to 100,000," explained Beth Fulmer-Boyer, Asoyia's vice president for oil.
The increased production from contract farmers, mostly in Iowa but some in Nebraska and Wisconsin, is expected to push up production of the ultra low linolenic oil from 12 million pounds this year to 36 million pounds in 2010.
Farmers who produce those "low lin" soybeans receive a premium of up to $2.75 per bushel for the nongenetically modified bean and $1 above market for the genetically modified version.
Asoyia, which was organized in 2004 by 25 Iowa farmers, sells the ultra low lin oil to Pepperidge Farm for its Goldfish crackers and restaurant chains like Pizza Ranch and Houlihan's, as well as on grocery store shelves under its "Ultra" name.
Meanwhile, Iowa Natural of Humboldt is coming onto the market with a soy oil that has just 1 gram of saturated fat vs. the 2 grams of fat in most soybean/vegetable, corn or olive oils.
Iowa Natural's oil can go head-to-head with the 1 percent saturated fat rate in canola oil. That is the Canadian-originated product formerly known as rapeseed that, along with olive oil, has cut seriously into the U.S. vegetable oil market because of the lower fat content.
Because the bulk of "vegetable" oils are produced from soybeans, Iowa farmers and the state's extensive soybean-oil-processing network have a heavy interest in getting their commodities and products on the right side of the low-fat equation.
Soybean-based vegetable oils pushed aside traditional animal fat shortenings and lards on supermarket shelves a generation ago as Americans were advised of the risks of eating too much animal fat.
But animal fat, for all its drawbacks, was sturdy enough to stand up to 400-degree industrial cooking much better than the more delicate vegetable oils. So to make vegetable oils stronger, processors added hydrogen to the oil.
Hydrogenation rendered the vegetable oil better for cooking and gave it longer shelf life but almost immediately drew fire from health experts who noted that it introduced trans fats into the oil. Medical researchers say trans fats promote bad cholesterol in the bloodstream. That can lead to heart disease.
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration in 2006 began requiring food processors to identify the amount of trans fats in their products, giving rise to the "Zero Trans Fat" tag on snack food packages.
Meanwhile, olive oil and canola began coming into the market a decade ago with natural low-fat characteristics, helped along by publicity on the benefits of Mediterranean diets.
The low-fat-oil market is widening.
Cities such as New York and Boston, not to mention the entire state of California, have enacted bans against trans fats in restaurants and schools. The soybean interests worry that canola and olive oil will get to those markets first.
"We're not competing with Asoyia. We're going after the olive oil market," said Ken Smith, a farmer near State Center who is a manager and was one of the 25 founders of Iowa Natural in 2001.
Like Asoyia, Iowa Natural gets its soybeans from farmers who contract their crop and then receive a premium above the market price.
Specialty producers like Asoyia and Iowa Natural have to carefully document their production chains to qualify the various claims of low fat, zero trans fat or "natural."
For instance, Asoyia has some of its oil produced by Cargill in Cedar Rapids or Bloomington, Ill. Even if Asoyia's beans are not genetically modified, the oil cannot be labeled "natural" if it comes out of Cargill's processors that also work with genetically modified beans.
Both Asoyia and Iowa Natural use American Natural Soy at Cherokee, which processes for a number of organic grain producers, to process much of their oils.
Asoyia and Iowa Natural say they are using soybeans that are an outgrowth of the pioneering work of Walter Fehr, an Iowa State University professor who developed the world's first zero-trans-fat soybean.
Asoyia and Iowa Natural are working the narrower niches of regional retail supermarkets, health food and gourmet markets and smaller restaurants.
The biggest markets for frying oils are the fast-food chains such as McDonald's, Burger King and KFC, and snack or processed food producers such as Frito-Lay and Simplot.
The eureka moment for the fast foods and processors will be the introduction of soybeans genetically engineered to have higher contents of oleic acid. Oils from such beans are touted to have the heat resistance and shelf life of hydrogenated oils without the trans fats.
Pioneer Hi-Bred of Des Moines hopes for U.S. Department of Agriculture approval by November for a high-oleic bean being field-tested this summer in Iowa.
Monsanto plans to introduce a soybean line within two years that will be low linolenic, mid-oleic and low-fat.
"It will be the equivalent of olive oil," said Ted Crosbie, Monsanto's vice president for plant breeding.
As Fulmer-Boyer of Asoyia notes, the advances in reduced fat and shelf longevity won't do much good unless the oil produces fried and baked goods that Americans will continue to find tasty.
"Americans want reduced fat cooking oils, but they want it to taste good as well, and that is always the challenge," she said.
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