Food Industry Drives Farmer Profits For Soy Oil

When consumers talk, the food industry listens.  This was certainly the case when it came to trans fats.

Under added consumer pressure in 2006, the U.S. government approved regulation requiring trans fats to be labeled on food products. This prompted food companies to begin reformulating their products to begin reformulating their products to eliminate trans fats from their label, thus removing partially hydrogenated soy oil from the ingredient list.

When it comes to soy-oil demand, the food industry tops the list, with no other use coming close to matching it. The increased use of competitive oils represents a serious threat to soybean farmers’ profitability. Now, the soybean industry looks to take back some of that demand with new soybean traits, specifically high oleic soybeans.

“Soy oil used to be more than 80 percent of the edible-oil market,” says Dale Profit, a farmer-leader from Van Wert, Ohio. “High oleic soybeans are a vehicle for farmers to recapture some of that lost market share in the food industry.”