Nearly 7,000 miles from Gillette, the five-star Sherwood Hotel in Taipei, Taiwan, offers an opulence that contrasts with the leather and denim casualness of Wyoming. The glass doors at the entrance open up into gleaming tiled floors and wood-paneled walls. Chandeliers, spanning 15 feet, hang from the ceilings in the lobby. A seating area features a glass-door armoire displaying fine china vases and plates.
The restaurant is just as posh, presenting guests with an elegant dining experience. On an evening in early October, the chef’s specialty is various cuts of Wyoming Angus beef, which have been shipped to Taiwan from Murraymere Farms near Powell. The purpose of the meal is to showcase Wyoming produce, and the Taiwanese local media is there to capture the reactions of diners.
“They were so impressed with the flavor and tenderness of the beef and hope to have more,” said Murraymere Farms partner Val Murray, who also attended the dinner.
Building bridges
Among those in attendance was a large delegation from Wyoming. The state was represented by, among others, Governor Matt Mead, Wyoming Senate President Eli Bebout, Vice President of the Wyoming Stock Growers Association Jim Magagna, and Wyoming Business Council Shawn Reese.
This Wyoming delegation also included many industry leaders, such as Dave and Melanie True of True Ranches and Seaton and Forrest Smith of Gluten Free Harvest in Powell. They spent a few days touring private business facilities, with the goal of building trade bridges from Wyoming to the East.
“I strongly feel that this was accomplished above and beyond by having the face-to-face interaction and relationship building with each business we met with while visiting Taipei,” Murray stated.
Something is happening in that part of the world, and Wyoming’s industries—from trona to beef to rare earth minerals—are acting now to tap into the potential there.
“Wyoming desperately needs to grow outside its borders.” – Val Murray of Murraymere Farms
Doug Miyamoto, director of the Wyoming Department of Agriculture, explained how rising standards of living are creating new opportunities that Wyoming shouldn’t miss out on.
“Typically, diets change a little bit when income increases. They add more meat to their proteins,” Miyamoto said.
Wyoming recently opened a trade office in the Taipei World Trade Center, the first of its kind for Wyoming in over 30 years.
Murray said the trade office displays in its lobby a wide assortment of Wyoming products, including Queen Bee Gardens of Lovell, Cody Coffee Roasters in Cody, Bryant Honey Inc. of Worland, Johnny Midnite Gourmet & Wahoo Frontier Toppings of Buffalo, Mary Ann’s Beans of Glenrock, Snowy Elk Coffee Company of Cheyenne, and Chugwater Chili.
Wyoming currently ranks 49th among the states in terms of exports, Murray explained, and that needs to change.
“Wyoming desperately needs to grow outside its borders,” she said.
As demonstrated by the high-level officials who greeted the Wyoming delegation, Taiwan wants to buy what we have to sell. The president of Taiwan, and the country’s secretaries of education and commerce, met with the Wyoming leaders during their visit.
Supporting success
As Wyoming seeks to escape the “boom and bust” cycle that has so plagued the state’s mineral-dependent economy, a lot of talk centers around attracting new industries. But that’s just part of the story. Diversification includes growing new markets for the state’s existing industries.
“It was an unbelievably good trip, and our schedule was pretty packed,” Sen. Ogden Driskill exclaimed.
Driskill owns a large ranch near Devils Tower and is an advocate for strengthening Wyoming’s agriculture industry. He said diversification is about removing barriers and facilitating growth for industries with a proven record.
“I tend to lean hard toward companies that succeed in Wyoming,” Driskill said.
During their time in Taipei, the Wyoming delegation toured a number of facilities in Taiwan. Beef producers visited a privately-owned beef processing plant that has been in operation over 54 years.
“The cleanliness and technology that were presented at this facility were top notch, state of the art, and very impressive,” Murray said.
Driskill also met with representatives of grocery stores, though he said the grocers’ demand for beef is not as good as it was a year ago, when he first opened discussions with Taiwanese grocers. Large conglomerates have since stepped in to supply the grocers’ demands. Though, those distributors likely source some of their beef from Wyoming.
“What we’re doing, in some ways, is competing with ourselves,” Driskill said.
Murray discussed the challenges Wyoming beef producers face with the lack of a packing facility in the state. The remoteness of Wyoming means long distances to ship livestock to feedlots and then again to packing facilities. All that travel adds to the costs.
“We are so remote that we must haul an entire semi load of beef to the closest USDA packing plant, which is in northern Colorado,” Murray explained.
Producers have long been seeking ways to address the problem, but to date no company has built a facility in Wyoming.
The state is looking at how to attract a company that would build and operate one, but the general agreement is such a facility is needed to help ranchers survive the competitive agricultural commodity environment.
“It’s a limiting factor for us,” Miyamoto said.
The Wyoming Department of Agriculture is in talks with the Wyoming Business Council to address these needs.
“They’re vital for us,” Miyamoto said of the partnership between the two organizations in bringing a packing facility to fruition.
Fetching a premium
Innovation within the agricultural industry will also play an important role in opening up exporting opportunities.
In the last legislative session, Wyoming passed laws to make the state more friendly for the developing Blockchain technology. Blockchain is an electronic ledger that offers ways to maintain data integrity through countless transactions. It is being used to track beef production from birth to dinner plate.
This would allow Wyoming’s producers to ensure the integrity of their product. As Driskill pointed out, these large conglomerates are mass supplying beef to the Asian market, some of which probably comes from Wyoming.
As the dinner at the Sherwood in Taipei showed, Wyoming beef has a special appeal to connoisseurs. If the integrity of the product can be maintained, Wyoming beef can fetch a premium in markets overseas.
“There’s a lot of people here hanging on by a thread.” – Val Murray
“The more links in the chain you can verify as sourced from Wyoming, the more value that product can hold,” Miyamoto explained.
Driskill has been executing a pilot project using Blockchain technology at his Campstool Ranch, a program called Beefchain. He said Taiwan is very interested in how Blockchain can maintain food integrity for its agricultural imports. The technology is evolving rapidly in the country.
“Blockchain is moving at the speed of light in Taiwan,” Driskill said.
Murray called the trip a “baby step” toward a greater export market for Wyoming. The agricultural industry is a challenging one, and small, family-owned operations like we have here in Wyoming are struggling.
“There’s a lot of people here hanging on by a thread,” Murray said.
A single visit to Taiwan and a trade office won’t immediately change everything for Wyoming ranches, but Murray is optimistic about the future. She said she’s proceeding cautiously. There is a lot of interest in Wyoming, but she doesn’t want to see Wyoming producers making a commitment to a buyer, who later ends up dissatisfied.
“They want our product, but the concern is if we can fill their needs,” she said.
Supplying smaller, premium orders to high-end restaurants lets the East whet their palate, while allowing the Cowboy State’s producers to brand their beef. Meanwhile, the state can get some pieces in place to produce on a larger scale and maybe one day give the larger conglomerates a run for their money.
More than beef
Wyoming Malting Company, headquartered in Pine Bluffs, is a recent agricultural success story. The company is only a year old, but it’s supplying malts to brewers all around the state. The Big Lost Meadery and Brewery, as well as Gillette Brewing Company, buy malts from Wyoming Malting Company.
“If you’re wanting to trade with Taiwan, he’ll help you do it.” Senator Ogden Driskill on the trade representative in Taiwan.
“For being in business just one year, things are going well,” said Chad Brown, co-owner of the business.
He went to Taiwan with the rest of the delegation and met with owners of breweries there. As with the growing interest in imported beef, sundries like micro-breweries are also starting to spring up in Taiwan to meet the appetites of a growing middle class. Their brewpubs, Brown said, are just starting up.
“It’s very much in its infancy,” he said.
Just as beef producers can attach a premium to their beef when supplying high-end restaurants, Brown sees the same potential in supply to Taiwanese breweries. Wyoming malt producers maybe can’t match the volume of producers in other states, but Brown said they can offer the overseas buyers something else.
“When they buy from big conglomerates, they’re just a number. Are they going to actually talk to the person who produces their malts? Not likely,” he said.
Wyoming Malting Company can offer a tailor-made product, and when it comes to breweries, small details in how a malt is produced can impact the final product.
Groundwork is now being laid for other Wyoming businesses to advance exports for their own products. The trade office in Taipei has a full-time trade representative, Chester Chu, who will help Wyoming businesses navigate the logistics and regulations to reach Taiwanese buyers.
“If you’re wanting to trade with Taiwan, he’ll help you do it,” Driskill said. “He’s going to cut through all that.”
