He conceptualized and implemented a new dine-in menu and approved suppliers for Papa John's restaurants in China, Malaysia and South Korea as the company's regional R&D/QA director. He held multiple roles for Yum! Brands in Singapore, leading the R&D/QA and supply chain teams. He developed and launched a range of successful retail products, including frozen pizzas and a dairy spread, in Malaysia and Singapore as Auric Pacific Group's head of R&D and product innovation.

Now Martin Teo is putting his 20-plus years of varied and extensive experience in the Southeast Asian food manufacturing and food service sectors to work for USDEC members.

"I hope to close the gap between suppliers and customers, helping members get closer to end-users and meeting their needs," Teo told USDEC President and CEO Tom Vilsack after chaperoning a July technical training mission of Southeast Asian food and beverage manufacturers to the U.S.

(Click arrow below to view an edited video of that interview.)

Technical knowledge transfer for mutual benefit

Teo is the latest on-the-ground professional joining USDEC to expand business opportunities in key global export markets: China, South Korea, Japan, Southeast Asia and the Middle East/North Africa. The expanding resources for USDEC members are part of "The Next 5%" initiative to raise annual U.S. export volume from the equivalent of 15 percent of U.S. milk solids to 20 percent.

Teo, technical director of food applications with USDEC's Southeast Asia office since March 2018, aims to drive U.S. dairy-centric innovation by providing technical support, project management and leadership on food and beverage applications containing U.S. dairy ingredients and cheeses.

He is seeking to increase demand for U.S. dairy in three ways:

1. By creating awareness and providing knowledge of the U.S. dairy portfolio to Southeast Asian end-users.
2. By working directly with end-users to explain the functional benefits of U.S. cheese and dairy ingredients and how they can address specific regional needs.
3. By deepening engagement between U.S. dairy suppliers and end-users

Since joining USDEC, Teo has already accompanied the aforementioned technical training mission to the Center for Dairy Research (CDR) at the University of Wisconsin Madison and the 2018 IFT show in Chicago, spoke at the U.S. Dairy Innovation Seminar in Vietnam and conducted two permeate workshops at Singapore Polytechnic's Food Innovation Resource Center (FIRC). He will conduct another two workshops at FIRC later this year and is the member liaison with the institution as part of the partnership agreement USDEC signed with FIRC at the end of May.

Such events are helping reinforce U.S. dairy credentials and raise the U.S. dairy profile in Southeast Asia, laying the groundwork for U.S. suppliers to accelerate growth in the region.

Latest event sparks ideas
Take the CDR/IFT mission, for example.

"We had a chance to meet USDEC members that participated in IFT and see new trends in the United States," Teo noted. "The participants have heard so much about the U.S.-what they can do, huge country, high technology-but seeing for themselves is different than just listening, especially having two full-day training sessions at CDR. It gives them much more confidence about using U.S. dairy."

Attendees are already thinking about how to use the insights they gained to innovate back home, Teo said. And they are more interested in working with a U.S. supply source than prior to the trip.

It's a trend he'd like to see continue.

"I hope to reach out to more end users on how they can actually use more U.S. dairy ingredients-and cheese as well. I would love to be the ambassador, so to speak, for U.S. dairy to reach out to Southeast Asia."

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The U.S. Dairy Export Council fosters collaborative industry partnerships with processors, trading companies and others to enhance global demand for U.S. dairy products and ingredients. USDEC is primarily supported by Dairy Management Inc. through the dairy farmer checkoff. The password-protected article above is intended for USDEC member organizations only and should not be shared with anyone outside your organization.