Inaugural “Art of Beans” Workshop Kicks off in Medellin.

This year, we are conducting technical workshops in four Colombian cities under the banner, “The art of beans, a superfood that takes you to another level.”

The workshops are designed to attract chefs from top restaurants, hotels and culinary schools as well as leading food media influencers. The first two hour workshop was held in Medellin on July 19th and candidates for the session were identified by advertising the event through a digital marketing campaign on USDBC’s Spanish language “todoconfrijol” Facebook and Instagram platforms. More than 28,000 targeted people saw the advertisement and 650 people registered. Twenty-five workshop attendees were selected from the registrant pool based on their work position and workplace with priority given to chefs of well-known hotels and restaurants.

After an overview of U.S. production areas and bean types presented by USDBC, Melissa Ospina, a top chef from Medellin, prepared three recipes using U.S. light red kidney, black and cranberry beans to demonstrate dry bean versatility. This was followed by an overview of the health and nutrition benefits of regular bean consumption from Medellin based nutrition specialist Tatiana Archila. The workshop was live streamed on Facebook (@todoconfrijol), which reached nearly 1,000 people and generated over 100 interactions. Participants liked the flavor, size, and color of US dry beans and concluded that certain kinds would be very well received in the Medellin region both for traditional dishes, such as Bandeja Paisa, as well as new recipes. Moreover, they noted that the nutrition and health benefits were new information and as a result, think think that dry beans are well suited for today’s food trends. We’d like to thank all participants and especially USDA’s Foreign Agricultural Service (FAS) for their support of this initative through the Emerging Markets Program (EMP). A 2-minute professional video summarizing the workshop can be found on Instagram at @todoconfrijol, or Facebook  https://bit.ly/2YPnb7r.