The past few weeks have proven that soy remains an imperatively essential raw material and needs to continue to be delivered to crushing and feed manufacturing facilities around the world. For crushing plants to continue providing consumers with vegetal oil and livestock industry with protein meals, soy has to be continuously shipped across the world.

During these unprecedented times, the U.S. soy industry has concentrated on protecting the health of all operators in the chain in order to be able to continue to ensure the uninterrupted supply of soybeans to European and international customers. In an effort to serve European customers in the new context, U.S. soy industry stakeholders demonstrated their commitment by working collaboratively over the past month with traders, crushers, and transportation companies to ship to markets abroad without any significant disruptions.
Transportation infrastructure is one of the key strengths of the U.S. soy Industry. More than ever, the strengths of U.S. Soy have crucially contributed to maintaining supply to customers. In this regard, one of the key strengths of the U.S. soy industry is the reliable, integrated, multi-modal transportation system. Thanks to the comprehensive network of roads, railways, and waterways, U.S. soybeans and soy products move quickly and efficiently from the farm to export markets.
For most European customers, quality and continuous supply are what will always count. In the trade activity, people have seen that what is most important for the customer is that the deliveries arrive on time and that the product be of the right quality. Through its “boots on the ground,” U.S. Soy continued to stay engaged and played a key role over the past few weeks in maintaining communication between exporters and European customers, to secure continuous supply to existing customers and answer inquiries from new ones, from countries such as Greece, Croatia, and Slovenia.

Via local consultants or directly by exporters, U.S. Soy continued to support European customers through the challenges brought on by COVID -19 and to guarantee that crushers and feed mills have a consistent supply of soy for oil and meals. This proved once again that another key asset of the U.S. soy supply system are the countless people working in supply chain logistics from farmers growing the beans through consultants supporting end-users.
Thanks to excellent coordination with and between national organizations and consultation at the European level with the European Feed Manufacturers’ Federation (FEFAC), the raw materials sourcing, including soy, was guaranteed. As such, only farmers in a few places around EU faced disruption of feed delivery to livestock. U.S. Soy is open for business and the entire value chain, including farmers, transporters, crushers, and exporters, are working together to ensure the dependable supply of soy for not only European customers, but customers around the world.