2024 Sosland Publishing
Purchasing Seminar Winter Webinar
Sessions
SESSION 1
Global Grains and Bakery Flour
Steve Freed, Consultant
Freed Consulting
Near four-year lows were set in the past few months in US grain and oilseed futures, while speculative funds clung to a historically high short position. Domestic supplies are ample, even with lower 2024 US corn production, while global ending stocks are down for wheat but up for corn and soybeans. Webinar participants, including flour buyers and sellers, will gain insight into navigating domestic and global grain markets amid shifts in crop production and geo-political threats to supplies and logistics.
SESSION 2
WEATHER
Drew Lerner, President and Senior Agricultural Meteorologist
World Weather, Inc.
Weather was mostly favorable for US crops in 2024, but global weather challenges were seen in Europe, the Black Sea region, South America and other major growing regions. The impact of weather on Southern Hemisphere crops during the US winter and on US and other crop regions in the 2025 growing season will be explored in Lerner’s presentation.
SESSION 3
Edible Oils and Shortening
Alex Norton, President
Beeson & Associates, Inc.
Record-high 2024 US soybean production has pressured prices of soybeans and soybean oil. Brazil’s soybean production and exports and China’s soybean demand continue to drive the market, as does burgeoning demand for soybean oil from the biofuels sector that increasingly competes with the food sector. The Sosland Publishing Purchasing Seminar Winter Webinar will provide insight to help edible oils buyers and sellers navigate the market in 2024.
SESSION 4
Sweeteners
Ron Sterk, Senior Editor, Markets
Sosland Publishing
The domestic sugar market has come off two years of challenging supplies and historically high prices, with record-high US beet and cane sugar production and higher output in drought-ravaged Mexico anticipated in 2024-25. Cash and futures sugar prices have dropped, and buyers took a slower approach to adding forward coverage amid ample supplies. Corn sweetener values have been pressured by sharply lower US corn prices and stable to weaker demand. The Sweetener presentation will provide insight into supply, demand and pricing of sugar and corn sweeteners in the domestic market along with influences from outside and world markets.
Meet the Speakers
GLOBAL GRAINS AND BAKERY FLOUR
STEVE FREED
Consultant
Freed Consulting
Steve Freed is a consultant to the grain industry. He recently retired from ADM Investor Services after 30 years at the company, including time spent as director of research and, most recently, vice president of grain research. Prior to that he was with Dean Witter Reynolds as vice president of futures research. He also has held positions as oilseeds analyst for Frazier Parrott and as field crop analyst for Continental Grain Co., covering the US, Canada, Brazil and Argentina. Freed received a bachelor’s degree in agriculture from Illinois State University.
WEATHER
Drew Lerner
President and Senior Agricultural Meteorologist
World Weather, Inc.
Drew Lerner is president and senior agricultural meteorologist of World Weather, Inc. He has been forecasting international weather for over 40 years. He began his meteorology career in 1978 as he participated in an international effort to collect data and improve weather forecasting for the Asian monsoon. Since then, he has been supporting the agricultural industry by providing detailed short- and long-range weather predictions for each major crop area in the world. His daily assessments of crop and weather expectations supports commodity market trade and helps many companies make better agricultural business decisions. Lerner started World Weather, Inc. in 2001 after leading Global Weather Services in the late 1990s.
EDIBLE OILS AND SHORTENING
ALEX NORTON
President
Beeson & Associates Inc.
Alex Norton is president of Beeson & Associates, Inc., a commodity risk management consulting firm. He joined the company in 2008 as a commodity analyst with a focus on grains and oilseeds markets. Responsibilities grew to include providing analysis to back recommendations and risk management strategies for customers as the director of risk management. He later was named vice president of agricultural services in 2019, and in 2021 he was named president. He received a bachelor’s degree in economics from Wake Forest University and a master’s degree in business administration from the University of Massachusetts.
SWEETENERS
RON STERK
Senior Editor, Markets
Sosland Publishing Co.
Ron Sterk is senior editor, markets, for Milling & Baking News and Food Business News, and is the creator and editor of the Sosland Sweetener Report, the only newsletter dedicated to covering the domestic sweetener market. In addition to sugar, he covers a wide array of ingredient markets pertinent to grain-based foods and other food manufacturers. He has a bachelor’s degree in agricultural journalism with a focus in agronomy and a minor in animal science from Iowa State University and a master’s degree in business from Rockhurst University in Kansas City.