China Trip

Last week I was in China with Pulse Canada representing Alberta Pulse Growers Commission & Pulse Canada.
The main goals of the trip was to:

• Sign a MOU with CFNA (Chinese importer association)
• ​Meet with government groups and trade associations 
• Reconnect with customers (China has been up to 90% of our market for peas),
• Explore if we can help industry grow their business with our product
  • This can include LCA (life cycle assessments) that may help their customers
  • partnering on research
• Learn about things we can do better for them and or new opportunities
  • ​Russian peas are taking our market share in the feed market and maybe more.
• Ask about new pulses type access into China. Currently there are no phytosanitary allowances for faba beans, lentils, chickpea, adzuki beans but flours of these can be imported.

We had 16 meetings in Beijing & Zhaoyuan and learned a lot. I think there opportunities still to come for this market!
​Vermicelli noodles we buy in Canada come from Canadian peas and part of that success can be traced back to pulse groups! This has lead to it also becoming a big protein fractionation market area as well.