USGC’s White Sorghum Promotion Makes National News In Japan

A major Japanese network TV station aired an original story introducing U.S. white sorghum as a healthy grain to roughly 1 million consumers in July 2015, marking a significant milestone for the U.S. Grains Council’s multi-year promotion of the food ingredient in that country.

The Council’s office in Japan helped the network develop its sorghum-focused content by contributing photos, video and information on U.S. sorghum, which shows that it has become a respected source of information and has achieved success in efforts to spark the media’s interest in the benefits of sorghum to consumers.

The eight-minute story included scenes from a video produced by the United Sorghum Checkoff Program (USCP) featuring U.S. sorghum fields and harvest; Americans tasting sorghum dishes at a restaurant; and restaurant-goers enjoying sorghum dishes at the Hotel InterContinental Tokyo Bay.

This large-scale promotion of U.S white sorghum to Japanese consumers will help them learn benefits of U.S. sorghum as a value-added food ingredient and, in turn, help create new demand for the product.

There are over 40 products using sorghum on the market. The Council estimates, based on information from the industry that the total amount of food sorghum including flour sold to Japan by the U.S. is 400 tons. Although the volume is low, this is an important market for U.S. sorghum producers who hope to leverage the Japanese success into a larger marketing effort for using U.S. sorghum in Asian consumer markets.