#133 | Exporting 5th Generation Farm Soybeans

ATTENTION:  Below is a machine-generated transcription of the podcast. Yes, here at Rapport International we talk a lot about how machine translation lacks quality. Here you see an example of what a machine can do in your own language. This transcription is provided as a gist and to give time indicators to find a topic of interest. 

 

Wendy: Hello, listeners of The Global Marketing Show. Thanks for tuning in again today. Before we get started, you know, I always like to say that the podcast is sponsored by Rapport International and I have a tidbit from them today. So, this one is called The Final Word, and it's about speaking in German. The most important word in the German [00:01:00] sentence is usually the final one, so Germans get in a habit of listening for the end of the sentence, and they're annoyed when it doesn't come. 

And I read a write up once about Germans here in the United States and how we can cut people off. So if you're not getting to the point fast enough and the end of the sentence doesn't really matter, we'll cut people off. So Germans have to be warned that Americans are like this. And now I understand more why Germans do that. 

So today's guest is Bob Sinner from SB& B Foods, and he spent his entire life living in North Dakota, and I met him when I was out in Fargo. It's a beautiful state. And after graduating from North Dakota State University with a degree in Agricultural Economics, he joined the family farming operations, and before SB& B actively pursued their international expansion, he served on the Executive Committee of the United Soybean Board, [00:02:00] and Chairman of the International Promotion Committee. 

And in 1989, the company decided to expand by creating an international business to supply food quality soybeans, and later on other food grade commodities directly to food manufacturers globally. So I'm really looking forward to this conversation, Bob. Thank you so much for being here today.  

Bob Sinner: Oh Wendy, it's a treat. 

 You're really pleasant and excited to have a nice visit.  

Wendy: Oh, good. So tell us about your company. It started in 1906? 

Bob Sinner: Yeah, we've a long, long family history. We just got done talking about the Germans and getting the last word. In my household, it's always my wife that gets the last word, you know, that's usually the way it works, right? 

Wendy: Is she German? 

Bob Sinner: Yeah, actually she's Norwegian, my grandfathers and my forefathers were from the German descent. And my [00:03:00] great-grandfather started our farming operation here in Eastern North Dakota in what is commonly referred to as the Red River Valley in 1906. So I'm the fourth generation. 

 But back in 1952, 60, 72 years ago, I guess it is now. My father and his brother and a brother in law started a family partnership, farming partnership, called Sinner Brothers and Bresnahan. So the brother in law was a Bresnahan. And it's a long, long phrase, right? 

So Sinner Brothers and Bresnahan quickly became referred to even back then as SB& B. People know us as SB& B and the farming community, and people have gotten to know us quite well in the international community now because of what we did back in the late 80s, we changed the way we were thinking about our business and thought that this would be something that would [00:04:00] be fun to do, to get close to the food and closer to the consumer with our food products. 

Wendy: So tell me more about that. What was that change? What did it look like? And how did you decide to change it? And what did the change look like?  

Bob Sinner: Well, as you mentioned, I was serving on the national board and my committee in the soybean industry. We used farmer checkoff dollars to do research and market promotion and education. 

And one of those market promotion areas is international. And I was elected by my peers to chair the international promotions committee, and we had cooperating money from USDA and our committee, it was responsible for about 400 different projects in 85 different countries. So it's a lot of work and you have to make sure that everything that you do has a measurable objective and has a meaning for it. 

But [00:05:00] in that work, Wendy, I began to realize that there were opportunities. Opportunities in more of the mature markets for food companies that were looking to improve their retail products, rather than taking soybeans off a balk vessel with no similarities in consistency, whether it's protein or whether it's variety, or whether it's internal characteristics or even protein. They wanted something more definitive, more specific that would help them improve their food products. So it's like, let's create a variety that makes a better tofu. Or let's create a variety that makes a better soy milk. And let's maintain that identity of that variety all the way from planting to the food use. 

Hmm. So I got on a plane, talked to my partners and said, you know, guys, we've always been proud of the quality we produce [00:06:00] here. What do you think about doing some things direct? The first glass is we've been drinking this morning? Are you freaking crazy that you think we can market our product from our farm here in Castle, North Dakota, directed consumers or food manufacturers internationally. Um, and I said, yeah, I think we can, but I'll be honest with you, Wendy, when you talk to people in the national offices or even in the international offices in the soy industry, their response was, "Bob, food grade soybeans come from Iowa, Illinois, and Indiana, not from North Dakota. Don't waste your time. This is not going to work. You don't have enough production in North Dakota." And people that know me, Wendy, know that I'm a stubborn SOB. I was pretty competitive in sports when I grew up and tell me I can't do something and I'm going to give it my best shot, that's for [00:07:00] sure. But ironically, at the same time, my father was the governor of North Dakota and had convinced the legislature then in 1987 to appropriate some dollars to open an office in Tokyo, Japan. And the purpose of that office as the legislature appropriated the monies, was to attract Japanese investment into North Dakota. 

Well, I said, I'm going to contact that office and ask them if they will introduce me to someone that can help me with translation. So I did that and I got introduced to a translator. I told him that I was confident in a tofu soybean that I wanted to meet with a tofu manufacturer. 

And that's how it all started. I came back to North Dakota and I said to my father, you know, I appreciate what you've done [00:08:00] here, but I really think that the objective of that office should be to help companies in North Dakota establish business relationships in Japan before you can expect Japanese investment. 

And he said, I believe that you're correct. Unfortunately, I think the legislature is going to run out of patience. After two years, from 1987 to 1989, they had no success in attracting Japanese investment and closed the office. And so I got in on the very tail end of when that office it was still open and fortunately their director had introduced me to a translator that I had confidence in, that I trusted, that helped me get introduced to companies prior to them closing the office that next summer. That's how it all started.  

Wendy: So it really was the translator that helped make the introductions. I mean, you're great [00:09:00] idea, one person to get in, one trusted translator.  

Bob Sinner: Yeah, I wanted to get a little bit of an introduction to what this was about, right? 

But when I came home after that first visit, I knew that I had to do some work. I had to study. Now, the beauty of our business is that we have a farming partnership. I'm a partner with not only my sons, but my first cousins. So as I mentioned, the partnership started in the 1952 with my father, a brother and a brother in law. 

And then us as the fourth generation took over the business in the seventies and eighties. And so the ability to have other partners that were willing to say, you know what, Bob, let's go ahead and we'll allow you that extra time to spend working to understand the market, understand what needs to be done, understanding the culture, understanding the business culture, and we'll pick up the [00:10:00] slack. That's the beauty of how that worked. It gave me some time to really dig into this, put my heels on the ground and say, you know, I'm going to make this work. People say it's not going to work, but I'm going to make it work.  

Wendy: So you're given the time by your partners, and then you have to research the market. 

You've done one trip over there. You've got a connection with a translator that it sounds like you've really aligned with, and they had good connections. If you're talking to the listeners and they're thinking about going international, What kind of research and what did you actually do to make it as successful as you have? 

Where'd you start?  

Bob Sinner: Well, it's a long story, Wendy. If you're going to market food grade soybeans, you got to make sure you have the confidence in a variety of beans or a specific variety that you feel you can market, right?  

Wendy: And were you focusing on this? I'm just out of curiosity with my [00:11:00] farming heritage. 

 Were your soybeans only for tofu or did you have it also for soy milk or are they the same?  

Bob Sinner: Well, I was pretty naive, really. I mean, it's a soy food market, and the initial introduction to the soy food industry was that this was all about tofu. So that was my focus, and I went to the University of Minnesota. 

And in their breeding program, they had a high protein bean that they had named Proto, P R O T O. Well, guess where they got the name? Proto came from protein tofu. You put those together and come up with the word Proto.  

Wendy: That makes sense to me.  

Bob Sinner: But just because it was developed as a high protein bean doesn't necessarily mean that food manufacturers are going to like it. 

Every manufacturer, whether it's tofu, soy milk, [00:12:00] natto, miso, has their own way of developing their food products. So I had to do some testing. I had to make sure that I had the confidence in this variety, but I could market it. Because marketing is having confidence in what you're doing.  

Wendy: Right.  

Bob Sinner: So I went down to North Dakota State University, and there was a food scientist in the cereal science department. 

His name was Dr. Sam Chang. He's a native of Taiwan, and he was studying sunflower pectin, but he had a lot of knowledge about soy, and so I said to him, Sam, what do you know about making tofu? He said, well, I know enough to get me in trouble, but let's do some work on this. So together we established a testing program and we purchased some little different apparatuses so we could make some tofu and I'm fast forward here, but a couple of years [00:13:00] later, we had a trade team that was invited to North Dakota from Taiwan and Sam had some connections there. 

We brought this group of soy food companies into Fargo, North Dakota. And we made tofu from proto soybeans for them. And we did a little sensory program with them so they could give us their opinions. And it's interesting because you think that everyone in Asia loves tofu, but everybody has a different opinion about a food just like you and I do. 

Right. But at the end of the day and prior to going to the airport, the chairman of the Taiwan Tofu Association said, you know what, this was an impressive day and we'd like to donate a miniature tofu plant to North Dakota State University so that you can do testing of varieties that you develop. Wow, what a home [00:14:00] run that was. 

Wendy: Really, that's exciting.  

Bob Sinner: They provided the equipment, they provided all the things that were necessary to put this together on the campus of North Dakota State University.  

And the North Dakota Soybean Council, which is the funding arm of the growers in North Dakota, provided the funds to ship that equipment over here. 

Wendy: Wow.  

Bob Sinner: So it came into North Dakota State, it was set up, and we're still using that equipment today to help screen and test varieties that are applicable to food companies. That's how it all started.  

Wendy: Okay. So your first was you had the States trying to get investment and you say, Hey, let's flip that. 

So you do a trip to Japan and realize that they don't have enough tofu beans, or there was a need for it with the food manufacturers. And that's what got sparked your idea. [00:15:00]  

Bob Sinner: Well, I knew that from my work in the soybean industry, that there were companies in Japan that were looking to source food quality soybeans, specific varieties that would help them. And so it was just a matter of getting in the door. And so I needed some help in Japan with that to get in the door, introduce them to the bean that I had and see what we could come up with. Everybody told me that Japanese are difficult to work with. They are cold people. They're structured, they're difficult. But I've got another story about all that, it's an absolutely wonderful country.  

Wendy: Oh, go ahead and tell me, because this is all the cultural stuff that's so rich. We come in with these ideas of how people were going to be, but it sounds like you have an enjoyment of working with Japanese. 

I don't know. Tell me the story.  

Bob Sinner: Marketing is all about number one, being yourself. Being [00:16:00] honest, treat the people like you want to be treated, but knowing your product, right? And there's nothing magical about marketing. I was very studious about understanding their culture, the bowing and even the exchange of a business card. 

How we as Americans throw it back and forth in front of each other, and the very formal way of presenting a business card. Just the little things, the little nuances of how a business relationship starts. But in Japan, it's all about not only supplying a quality product that they want, but it's even more so the importance of a trusting relationship. 

It takes time to build that. So our process of marketing took a couple years. I mean, we had the dream of being able to just sell our own beans from our own farm, and it took a couple years before we had our first order, [00:17:00] because they wanted to get to know you. They came here, I went back and forth, and we developed that rapport and that trust and that understanding of who we were and what they needed in appreciation for what we could possibly accomplish together.  

Wendy: Right. I've heard that again and again, that it's all about the relationship and the trust, and then it can take a couple of years, but it works so fast forward to today, you're in 80, 85 countries.  

Bob Sinner: No, that was my work in the soybean industry. 

We're right now we're working in about 15 or 16 different countries, primarily in Asia, because the high per capita consumption of soy is in Asia. But we're throughout Asia. We make regular visits there. We have regular visits from customers coming over here. There's hardly a month goes by where there's someone's not here from Asia to see us. 

 We got a big trade team in Fargo [00:18:00] this week learning, understanding the food soybean procurement process. We've been instrumental in developing these different programs at the Northern Crops Institute on the campus of North Dakota State University to help customers not only procure from us, but from other suppliers in the United States. 

And, and you know, Wendy, I speak often at conferences in Michigan or Illinois or Ohio and people say, but Bob, why do you tell us the secret? Why do you tell us, or why do you share this information? Because all you're doing is inviting competition. And you know, Wendy, I used to think that way, but the world is a growing population, and demand for non GMO food grade pot, soybeans continues to go up, economies as they improve are going to need more food, the population's growing. 

I'm not worried about competition. Some of our good [00:19:00] friends in the industry are competitors and it's all about doing what's important for your own business between you and your buyers.  

Wendy: Right. And so you're now the largest soybean producer in North Dakota, which is one of the largest soybean producers in the United States, right? 

Bob Sinner: I wouldn't say we're the largest producer. North Dakota is a large producer of soybeans. SB& B is a large, if not the largest supplier of identity preserved food quality non GMO soybeans to food companies internationally. And that's been humbling. 

 The appreciation that customers continue to show to us and express the desire to continue growing with us. So that's been fun.  

Wendy: Yeah, you have accomplished so much. It's so great to see you. And I met your sons too. So, great family. If you ever have a chance to get out [00:20:00] North Dakota listeners, you got to look them up. 

I want to touch back, Bob, you know, you started with the translator and now you're in 15 or 16 countries and you're in Asia. So you've got all the Asian languages. What are you doing for communications, either marketing or in person, written, spoken, in person? How do you handle that?  

Bob Sinner: Really, really good question. 

Most of the companies, the food companies in Asia that are buying direct or through an importer, either have their own translator on staff or have the ability to communicate. Really important because communication today is instantaneous. When I started this business, there was no email, fax machines were just getting started. 

And so I spent a lot of time and evenings at the office because. Let's face it, when they're working, we're sleeping, and vice versa, so [00:21:00] I did spend quite a bit of time at the office, and then later, starting in the early 90s with fax machines, and sending faxes back and forth, and that's how you negotiated because telephone calls were expensive, they were difficult and now look at where we've come in 30, 35 years, pretty impressive and it's instantaneous. So the communication is unbelievable. I get 20, 30, 40 emails every day from customers from around the world and that's the beauty of doing business. 

Wendy: And so most of the emails that you get are in English to you?  

Bob Sinner: Yeah, everything is in English. We don't have anyone in our office or even on our ownership team that speak much, if any, foreign language. I mean, I can pick up a little Japanese and I can pick up a little Korean, but for the most part, it's the customers that have figured out a way to communicate with us.[00:22:00]  

Now, we do have representative or representation. SB&B has an employee in the country of Taiwan and there are importers that we've worked very closely with that are very, very good English speaking people. For example, in the natto industry in Japan, we have a company that we've been working with for 25, 30 years that not only speaks good English, but understands our business, understands farmers business or agriculture in North Dakota and all the complications and the frustrations that farmers can face. because of weather.  

Wendy: Yeah, that's certainly true. 

What do you think has been one of the biggest challenges when you were launching and what did you learn from it?  

Bob Sinner: I didn't believe this would be a challenge when we started but it becomes more and more of a challenge. And that is the way to transport our product overseas.[00:23:00]  

So let's think about that. There are containers, everyone has seen these, they're 40 foot or 20 feet long, that go by on the railroad all the time. You might see it on a truck chassis. That's how imported goods come into our country. Tires, TVs, T shirts, things that are consumer items that are coming into our country in containers. 

They're in a steel box. Most of the consumer items that come into this country are light items, TVs, tires, things that need more space than they need weight, right? So they go in 40 foot containers. They're 40 feet long, 8 feet wide, 8 feet high, and their destination is large metropolitan areas, like Chicago, [00:24:00] like New York, like Memphis. 

Agriculture products, because they're heavy, prefer 20 foot containers. And because a lot of these Asia destinations are tight, high populations, small geographical area, tough to move big semis around. So most of our customers want 20 foot containers. And oh, by the way, they come from rural America, not metropolitan areas. 

So right there, becomes a logistical challenge. 40 foot containers of the bulk of our consumer items come in in 40s. In a large metropolitan areas, we need 20 foot containers in rural America. So, I get very involved on the national level, trying to help figure out a way to help address these challenges, because we in the [00:25:00] northern Midwest, there's a lot of companies that are doing what we're doing, are chronically short of container equipment to get our products shipped on a regular basis because you've got to get those containers empty, moved from Chicago into a Minneapolis market so we can better have access as a shipper. Now, we've been able to convince a lot of our customers that 40 foot containers can work. We may have to make some adjustments. Ocean carriers have been cooperating to say, you know what, we'll give you the same cost on a 40 as we do a 20, but it still has to work for the customer. 

Everything we do, everything we do is about the customer. It's about the customer. What do they need? When do they need it? And how can we best serve them? 

Wendy: I have heard all sorts of problems with logistics like the water in the Panama Canal, and the [00:26:00] bridge in Maryland going down, and COVID threw it off, and this is the first time that I've heard this one, and it makes so much sense.  

Bob Sinner: We all know the challenges that we all faced, especially through COVID. 

 We couldn't get enough containers coming in fast enough to serve our industry because everything was shut down for nine months or a year. It was a catch up time and that was frustrating for us as well, because we couldn't get our product to customers. Some of our customers actually had to shut their factories down because we couldn't get the beans to them fast enough. And this is food. We were in a central business. We never shut down. We had to change some things through COVID, but everything we do is for food. And, consumer items got preference. In many ways our ocean carriers, because of the high cost that they were able to capture on imported goods was so great that they didn't want our [00:27:00] exports. They wanted to get those containers back overseas as fast as they could. They didn't want to take time to get them filled. That hurt our industry. It hurt our industry significantly. And customers are still asking questions about that. 

You know, what's the future look like? What's the next season going to look like? So we have to continue to address this and stay on top of it.  

Wendy: Right, right. What are your soybeans used for? So do you have different strains and breeds? I have to go back to the farming question. Is it mostly tofu still or is it milks or other things? 

Bob Sinner: Well, just like anything else, when you're in the business for a long time, things start to evolve and you expand and you change and you add things. So. We have a very sophisticated breeding program. Because of our reputation in the industry, we have grown, not only within the same country, but into other countries, and now working in not only the tofu market, but the soy [00:28:00] milk market, the natto market, which is big in North Asia,  

Wendy: What is it called? 

The natto, I don't know natto  

Bob Sinner: N-A-T-T-O is probably one of the healthiest foods on the planet. It's a fermented food that has some documented evidence. of reversing congestive heart failure. It has improved brain function. And there's a reason the Japanese live long lives because when they get older, they start eating natto every morning for breakfast. And this region in the Midwest is a big supplier of natto soybeans for the Japanese industry. But we do things in miso. We do things in sprout soybeans. There's about 25 different types of soy foods. Yuba, and the different things that our beans can be used for, but it's all about, again, the consumer, the buyer, and the customer [00:29:00] and making sure that we can develop varieties that fits their needs and what they want to accomplish with their manufacturing and a retail product. 

Wendy: And that goes back to the relationships that you've built over years with trust that they say, Hey, we want to do this, and you put your brains together and figure it out. Right. What would you recommend to anybody who's thinking about exporting? 

What would be your advice to them?  

Bob Sinner: Understand your market. Focus on core values, integrity, honesty, fairness. And I hate to say this, but Americans are notorious for wanting to make a quick buck. Be patient, develop that relationship, develop that trust, and then you'll be surprised how fast things will come together. 

Those are some early lessons, be persistent, but be patient.  

 [00:30:00] Learn, educate yourself. Anyone can do this. There's nothing magical about doing business abroad, and it's actually extremely rewarding. You understand the complexity of our economies, but how similar we all are as human beings. 

Wendy: Yeah, that has struck me again and again. Sense of humor, want to be safe, want to do good business. Yes, yes.  

Bob Sinner: We all have families, we all have our children, so it's pretty fun.  

Wendy: Yes, yeah. Okay, you know this question is coming. What is your favorite foreign word?  

Bob Sinner: You know, I often think about that. 

And when I learn a phrase or a word in a foreign language, sometimes it kind of rings with you and when you learn how to say it, it's kind of fun to say. But there's a few different little phrases in Japan that kind of roll off your tongue and you don't even have to think about it [00:31:00] because it rolls so easy and that's good morning and in Japanese, it's ohayo gozaimasu, ohayo gozaimasu, and it's fun to say. 

And then you always get ohayo gozaimasu right back. And so that's a fun way of communicating with any consumer, whether you're in America or whether you're in Japan. Good morning. How are you. Those are fun things to do. So that has really been, you know, probably my favorite phrase or little favorite words to say. 

That's great. As a foreign word.  

Wendy: Yes, you come in looking like a traditional American and able to say good morning. You're going to get a lot of smiles. That's right. That's a good one. Well, thank you so much for being on the show. It's always such a pleasure to speak with you.  

Bob Sinner: Wendy, thank you so much for the invitation. 

 I always enjoy telling the story and to be honest with you, I'm extremely humbled. Well we get a lot [00:32:00] of recognition, but it's really about the people that come to work with us every day that wanting to be the best and the appreciation that our customers have shown us for the little things that we do to make their lives better. 

And it's been extremely rewarding and I really appreciate your willingness to talk about this.  

Wendy: If people want to reach out to you to learn more, what's the best way to do so?  

Bob Sinner: Oh gosh, I'm available by email, just like everyone else. My, my email is R as in Robert Sinner and that's opposite of Saint, right? 

S I N N E R, rsinner@sb-b.com.  

Wendy: Okay, we'll put that on the show notes too. So, rsinner@sb-b.com. And now I know what the SBB stands for. That's great. I never knew that. 

Bob Sinner: It's actually, I'm sorry. It's SB dash B, so rsinner@sb-b.com. 

Wendy: [00:33:00] Okay. Okay. That's what I have written down here. So we'll put in the show notes. Good. Perfect. Okay. Well, thank you listeners for tuning in. I hope you learned something, from Bob today. I certainly did. I mean, North Dakota was a beautiful state. I was so thrilled to be there in May when it was really beautiful. 

But I hear the winters aren't as bad as they were talking about, and I know they are looking for people to move out there, and the winter is the scary thing, but the people I talked to out there said they weren't that bad, really. You might get like a couple of hot days, so it sounds more pleasant than being in Florida in the middle of summer where it's really perking up. 

So if you know of somebody that would enjoy this or learn from it or is thinking about exporting, certainly forward this along because it's a nice story about how to keep an ear out for what's open and how to build relationships to do it. So forward it along or give us a five, subscribe and if you want to be a guest on the show, you can certainly look up The [00:34:00] Global Marketing Show and find our webpage and apply to be a guest. 

Thank you so much and we'll talk to you next time.