Andy and Echo Hacker serve on the leadership team for Bonanza Bean, with Andy managing procurement and Echo running international sales. The husband and wife work well together on trade missions, including two recent ones.
Bonanza Bean, based in Morris, Minnesota, is privately owned by 17 different investors and originates dark red kidney beans, light red kidney beans, black beans, pinto beans, and some white kidney beans.
"It's a huge advantage," Andy Hacker said of working with his wife. "We think alike, and when we're portraying Northarvest (Bean Growers Association), our North Central Bean Dealers and bean growers, we have the same mindset, and we're promoting the same things."
He said the messaging they relay is the region's "top notch" food safety programs and bean quality.
"We are trying to simply get you the best beans that you can buy, at a great value," he said. "When you have a husband and wife team that's pretty pivotal, because we are speaking the same language."
Spain, Portugal and Morocco
This past November, the Hackers were part of a market development and trade mission trip to Spain, Portugal, and Morocco with the Great Lakes & St. Lawrence Governors & Premiers, on behalf of Northarvest Bean Growers Association.
In Spain and Portugal, the group met with buyers who were already buying the types of beans that Bonanza Bean supplies to the industry, Hacker said.
"We met with customers that would buy kidney beans and pinto beans, mostly," Hacker said. "I'd say the biggest want was dark red kidney beans in Spain and Portugal. They already buy a good sized quantity from the U.S."
He said the trip was mostly about identifying existing customers but also finding some new ones. Hacker said there was a demand for dark red kidney beans after a worldwide shortage from last year's crop.
"Argentina crop failure, the U.S. plantings were down — caused a little bit of a need for dark red kidneys, so everybody was asking for them," Hacker said.
Hacker called Morocco an emerging market for American dry beans.
"When you look at the shelves (in Morocco), there are probably some French customers we're already working with in the U.S., but in the marketplaces, there were a lot of white beans that were coming from Egypt," he said. "There wasn't really any dark reds in there, and I didn't see hardly any black or kidney beans."
Dubai
Hacker and his wife were also at this year's Gulfood Show in Dubai. His biggest takeaway was the step up in international competition for dry beans.
"There's a lot of other countries that have been setting up big booths for dry beans," Hacker said of the show. "You're seeing Canada, Argentina, Brazil. There's a lot of places that are are trying to pump up the bean industries in their countries, so there's going to be a lot of competition on that side, I think, for the U.S."
Hacker said the U.S. still has the best quality dry beans and food safety standards, but the attention to industries from different countries will be a challenge in the future as far as market competition.
"There's a large interest in buyers from Pakistan, India, Australia, China," Hacker said. "Other countries are really boosting bean production and just doing a lot of marketing, and they're just promoting themselves really well, and my hope is we're not getting behind in the U.S."