No gray areas/
Samuel Peck’s black-and-white outlook on the pulses industry as it stands

Could you tell me a little about your background and how you came to work with Jack’s Bean? Have you always worked in the pulses industry?

Sure. I’ve been in the industry for forty years. I was tall and had black hair at the beginning! My background is in international trading companies. When I first started, they threw me into domestic trade but, soon after, my entire career became international exports from the United States and North America. Before I was involved with Jack’s Bean, I used to be one of the biggest buyers in China of black beans that were exported to South America and the United States. I've been involved in Ethiopia, I buy product in Peru; so I'm very international. I probably know as much as anybody in the world on the various varieties grown almost anywhere. From South America to North America to Ethiopia to Tanzania, everywhere. I left trading because I felt that I was a dinosaur. I really wanted some grower base or processing base here in the United States, at least to have a foundation to make a living. 

Jack’s Bean approached me; they’re basically three dried bean processing warehouses. One is in Holyoke, Colorado, and the other two are up in North Dakota. Through our company, I also market for a black bean warehouse in Michigan, a cooperative in Washington, and a grower / processor in Nebraska. I do all their exports, but I’m not involved much with domestic apart from what I bring into the United States.


With what kinds of beans are you involved with specifically?
Pintos, black beans, light red kidneys … some small reds, a few great northerns, and a few navys, but we’re not really in the navy bean business in terms of canning; our stuff is more in packaging. 

You work mainly in international trade; have you been affected by the current shipping chaos?|
I don’t have one good thing to say about a shipping company right now, not one. If I never had to use another one … they’re just extorting us right now. And I hear that we’re probably going to see this for another one to two years. I understand there are a number of vessels coming; I heard that Costco got in on the vessel building first, so they may have more vessels before everybody else. But until there are more vessels online …

But right now, what they’re doing is awful. Just last week, three carriers said that they’re not even going to call Seattle anymore. The ships can’t get in, they can’t get out. When they can, they give us a day to pick up the equipment, go four hours into the interior to load the containers, then four hours back to the docks again; you can’t do it in a day. Even if you have the drayage lined up, you just can’t do it. The time doesn’t work. Most of them won’t even go to Europe out of Seattle anyway; they only want to go to China or Malaysia and get the containers back over there. I’ve got agents in China who know my email address from the past. They’re sending me emails saying “we can get your freight from China to New York for $8500 and Houston for $10,000”: that’s a 500% price increase! I tell them to go away - I’m not interested.

And the tariffs in Europe are affecting us: I’ve seen no business to Europe outside of green baby limas in five years. It’s the 25% import tax, although an announcement came out last week that that’s supposed to finish on the first of January. Even so though, at the moment, given what I’ve been hearing from other areas, Europe is just dead. So I don’t know if we’re really going to see any pick-up on business.

Actually, a lot of our slowness right now is because of Mexico and the anticipation of crops being good down there. They had more acres in, and they got rain, which they haven’t really had in the last three years. They have a better-looking crop coming. It may not be sufficient, but we had such poor yields in North Dakota for the main varieties of beans that go south to Mexico that we don’t care. I’m out right now. Growers aren’t supporting prices — it doesn’t matter — we don’t have big stocks to ship, and we’ve got high prices; it’s a standoff really. We really had a false market for about three months.

Are your growers seeing the consequences of climatic change: rain when there shouldn’t be and no rain when there should be, unpredictable weather patterns?
Well, yes and no. This year, they’re mainly going to be affected by urea, nitrogen, fertilizer, and pesticide prices, but that’s because of the China stuff. Prices are high, and a lot of that stuff comes from over there. The growers are trying to decide whether to put in soy or dried beans: what do they do? Last year we had high prices on all the grains: corn, wheat, soy, everything was high. Growers put in more corn in North Dakota and dropped the bean acres. They put in a lot more corn down here in Colorado and Nebraska. Our take here in Holyoke (Colorado) on pintos is one-third of what it was a year ago, so that tells you how much more corn they’re growing compared to beans. So it’s really been the high grain prices that have affected us this year. 

But then we also had poor weather in North Dakota. We had a drought, so our yields are 30-35% lower than normal on the state average. One of my growers lives in the worst county in the whole state. It should have the second-largest production of pintos in the whole state: 55,000 acres. His farm averaged 600 pounds; normally it’s 1500 pounds. So he’s hurting. He still has bean fields out. We were dry in June and July, and then we got rain. We had these plants that were going “Well, do we shut off? Do we die?” And then they got some rain, and they said “Oh, this is great! Let’s grow some more!” So he had plants here that are dead and ready to harvest, and plants over here that have put more pods on and are green. But he can’t go into the field and cut them, because that would mess everything up. So he’s been waiting, but now the temperatures have come down and the plants won’t finish as quickly. He still has 500 or 600 acres out, and they’re probably going to be rubbish by now because they’re getting rain. 

So climatic change, yes. This was I think the driest year in history in North Dakota. Or at least in the last forty years. California is dry; they have no water. We’re seeing things in the last five years that we’ve never seen before. High grain prices, business weird, no movement. There are just some strange things. 


Normally I would ask if Jack’s Bean International has plans for expansion, but given what you’ve said so far, I’m assuming possibly not?
We’ve done some of that in the past two or three years and last year we had a lot of expansion. My guy in Michigan added an automated bagging line, another guy has invested a million dollars in his plant in the last year and half. I just don’t see it for this year in terms of expansion because the take on what we’ve brought into the warehouses has been down. Until we get into the 2022 crop, it’s mainly going to be “try to keep your head above water and not drown”.

Both of my growers in North Dakota did very well; some growers have done very well in the last few years, and they think the markets are going to continue to rise, but my philosophy has always been to suggest that the growers sell their production in thirds or fourths throughout the season. You’re not going to get the high, but you obviously don’t want to get the low. You sell some at harvest, you sell some here, you sell some there: you sell along with the markets. If you don’t, I don’t have product to supply my customers, and then those customers go someplace else. Then when you have product that you want to be selling, I don’t have customers to sell it to. Some guys understand that, and some don’t. 

We have specific markets where our stuff goes. The prices are what the prices are, and demand is what demand is. I’m very blunt. I get called to speak at grower association gatherings, and I say “Sometimes the export market is not going to pay your price, and you’re not going to get this price next year. So either don’t plant or don’t plant so much, or just expect not to get that money.” I’m black and white, but to me, honesty is essential in business.