Memphis-made soy protein will feed 30,000 children in Liberia for a year

Reprinted from The Commercial Appeal
By Wayne Risher, Thursday, August 12, 2010
Memphis, Tennessee

A Memphis-made soybean product is on its way to Liberia to help feed 30,000 schoolchildren for a year.

Eighty metric tons of soy protein isolate were loaded onto trucks at Solae's Memphis facility this week for shipment to West Africa by ocean freighter out of Louisiana.

Molly Cornbleet, spokes-woman for Solae, said the soy-based powder will be used in nutritional beverages as part of a U.S. Agriculture Department Food for Education program.

"We calculate that the 80 metric tons will produce nearly 9.7 million total servings. This serves 30,000 children for nearly a full year."

The shipment was arranged by Solae in conjunction with the World Initiative for Soy in Human Health, which is supported by the Tennessee Soybean Council. About 40 percent of children under age 5 in Liberia are malnourished.

These soybeans likely came from the Midwest, but Tennessee farmers have about 1.5 million acres planted in the legume this growing season, said Parks Wells, executive director of Tennessee's soybean association and promotion board.

"This is a humanitarian effort, and it will lead to good business for us later on," Wells said.

"The world's not short on food so much as they're essentially short on the nutritional end, and that's where we come in. The concentration of protein in this (Solae) is so strong, it's actually stronger than meat."

Soybean grower Keith Wilder of Millington said, "Sending soy to schoolchildren is an important use of our crop that will make an immediate difference in children's lives."

Cornbleet said Solae, a joint venture of DuPont and Bunge, has about 250 employees and 50 contractors associated with a Memphis plant at 4272 S. Mendenhall. The plant has undergone several expansions since the mid-1970s and has an output of 60,000 metric tons a year.

-- Wayne Risher: 529-2874