The United Soybean Board held a Biobased Products Stakeholders’ Workshop today at Hoover, Inc. Our featured speaker was Deputy Agriculture Secretary Kathleen Merrigan who announced the first 11 companies whose products have been certified to feature USDA’s new BioPreferred Label. “The USDA BioPreferred label assures the consumer that a product or package contains a verified amount of renewable biological ingredients.” You can hear her comments below as well as a short interview I conducted with her.

We also had soybean farmer representatives with us as well as representatives from a variety of companies that are now certified or working on it. I’ll be posting interviews with them later on.

One of the reasons this event was held in Ohio was the fact that three of the eleven companies are based here. Companies receiving the certification include:

Nutek Green, a division of Hoover, Inc., (Glenwillow, Ohio); Seventh Generation (Burlington, Vermont); Betco Corp. (Toledo, Ohio); Clear Lam Packaging, Inc. (Elk Grove Village, Illinois); DuPont Corporation (Wilmington, Delaware); ElastiKote (Akron, Ohio); Green Earth Technologies (Celebration, Florida); National Industries for the Blind Agencies (Lighthouse for the Blind, St. Louis, Missouri and Travis Association for the Blind, Austin, Texas); NatureWorks LLC (Minnetonka, Minnesota); Rochester Midland Corporation (Rochester, New York); Bio-Lub Canada (Quebec, Canada).

Deputy Ag Secretary Merrigan told us, “When consumers see the BioPreferred label in a store, they’ll know that the product or its packaging is made from renewable plant, animal, marine or forestry materials.” She also told me how happy she was that this program will help our farmers since it will continue to open up and develop new markets for their commodities.

You can listen to or download her comments here: Dep. Ag Secretary Merrigan's Remarks

You can listen to or download my interview with her here: Interview with Dep. Ag Secretary Merrigan

You can find photos from the event here: USB Biobased Stakeholders’ Workshop Photo Album