SOYS GO SEXY
Dressing up soybeans to catch the eye
of Toronto’s power brokers
By Steven Biggs
Contributing Editor, Country Guide Magazine
February 2009
PROFESSIONALS IN POWER SUITS STRIDE toward us from the Toronto streetcars that surge between the polished concrete office towers. They’re joined by more business types, strutting into the lobby from underground parking and the warren of shops and offices beneath the city streets.
There isn’t a farm in sight, or even the thought of a farm. Instead, everyone’s eyes immediately go where ours have gone.
We’re in the Toronto Stock Exchange, and through the thick glass walls, a bank of monitors flashes stock prices for companies with names like EnCana, Petro-Canada and HudBay Minerals while an endless stream of bright green lettering slides by on an electronic ticker.
Today, there are a lot of down arrows.
But it’s all upbeat on my side of the glass. Here, a ticker tape optimistically scrolls out the 101-plus uses of soybeans in products as diverse as adhesives, leather substitutes, wallboard, yarn, and cosmetics.
We’re here in one of the top handful of Canadian power centres to talk about soybeans. That’s right, soybeans.
Around the corner and down a few blocks, soybeans are part of everyday life in Chinatown. A few blocks further north by the University of Toronto, soybeans are trendy health foods.
But today’s function isn’t about tofu or about holistic living. Instead, it’s about persuading the country’s power brokers that soybeans should be a big part of their lives too.
Dale Petrie, general manager of the Ontario Soybean Growers, moves to a podium and talks of the soy industry’s vision, “From seed to sofa.” The audience, mainly people in suits, listens to researchers talk about the new soy-based bio-economy. Afterwards, they meander through the room to inspect displays of soy-based soaps, furniture, paints, and mattresses. Ford Canada has even come to show off the soy-based parts in its Mustang.
This is the soybean made sexy. It’s swanky, with coffee steaming in glass mugs and small cups of fruit smoothies. There are high ceilings, spotlights, frosted glass walls, and windows offering a view of nearby office towers.
But is it effective?
Petrie later tells me the reason for the high-profile location. “We didn’t want to do the same thing that’s always done.” In this part of the world, that usually means an event in Guelph, the agricultural hub about an hour west of Bay Street. Instead, today’s high-tech venue, known as the TSX Broadcast Centre Gallery, is filled with screens and monitors — and equally importantly, it’s in the midst of a very large urban audience.
“We have a good story to tell,” says Petrie, as he explains the tactic, which is also targeted at courting big city media. He thinks soybeans have a great news hook. Urbanites are predisposed to be interested in soy-based green products. It’s just a matter of getting the story through to them.
It’s part of a strategy that includes more traditional tactics, including trying to encourage the building a new specialty oil crushing plant in the province, together with providing input and support to a wide range of initiatives and groups, from Soy20/20 to the Ontario BioAuto Council.
If the TSX venture works, Petrie sees it stimulating consumer demand and helping
to pull more soy-based products into the marketplace.
It was about a year ago that Petrie realized just how compelling the story is. He was chatting with the owner of a furniture store. Learning about his involvement with soybeans, she excitedly told Petrie about the soy-based furniture she sells. Here was someone who, with no farm background, was extremely excited about a farm-based green solution that gave her a great marketing opportunity.
Because Toronto is hardly home to the soybean industry, a next big step was to call on a public relations agency that does call this place home. The agency, Optimum Public Relations, located nearby on King Street, suggested the venue. Noting that her firm has worked with agricultural clients in the past, account manager Alexandra Pecoskie says this event is new territory for them. “It was a first in terms of showcasing commercialization.”
From what I can see, it came together quite well. John Wilkinson, Ontario’s minister of research and innovation, stops in to learn about the many applications of soybeans. There are between 40 and 50 people in attendance. At one point, a speaker asks the farmers in the room to stand — and there aren’t many, exactly as the planners wanted.
During the formal agenda, the three speakers, all researchers studying new uses of soybeans, are animated. It’s obvious that they live and breathe soybeans. Sitting near
the podium, on a soy chesterfield, are Petrie and the moderator, Kim Parlee from the
Business News Network. Parlee’s work as an anchor and host is evident: well spoken
and poised, she gives a charismatic introduction for each speaker, then follows each
talk with relevant comments and a thanks to the speaker. It’s a classy touch.
The event is very media-friendly — in fact, it would be difficult to remain anonymous.
Somebody from the Ontario Soybean Growers makes a point of coming over to me to chat. Later, as I look at a display of paints containing soy, I overhear Pecoskie acting as matchmaker, introducing a Globe and Mail reporter to the representative of the paint company.
Dr. Suresh Narine, director of the Alberta Lipid Utilization Program, frames the concept of the bio-economy in simple terms for attendees. He explains that oil is merely photosynthetically created carboncarbon bonds that have been incubated underground for 500 million years. Why wait 500 million years when soybeans present the opportunity for a renewable source of carbon-carbon bonds?
He is the right sort of person to reach people outside the realm of agriculture and science. The affable Narine weaves together a humorous account of his wife’s makeup cabinet with his exciting news about a new soy and canola-based lipstick that his organization will launch in a joint effort with a private company. “With very simple science you can do some very cool stuff,” he proclaims.
On my way out, I pass Petrie, wearing a soy-based shirt, in front of a television camera. Within hours there are stories on BNN, Rogers, the Globe and Mail and the Toronto Sun.
Two days later, Petrie has a call from someone in Calgary who saw the event on television and wants to talk about soybeans.
“We’ve had great media coverage,” says Mary Wiley, OSG communications coordinator. “Stay tuned.”
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