Turning Pulse Crops into Market Opportunities

NCI program brings international food innovators to Fargo for hands-on pulse and dry bean

training.

For pulse growers, growing demand begins with showing customers what their crops can do.

That was the focus of a recent four-day program at Northern Crops Institute (NCI) in Fargo,

North Dakota, where food industry professionals from around the world gathered to explore new ways to use pulses and dry beans in food products.

Held August 31–September 3, the Production Opportunities with Pulse & Dry Bean Ingredients course brought together 20 participants representing the United States, Uruguay, Thailand, India, Türkiye, Guatemala, Peru, Panama, Colombia and Morocco.

The Northern Pulse Growers Association was among the organizations supporting the program, along with Northarvest Bean Growers Association, AGT Foods and USA Pulses.

For NPGA growers, that international reach is significant. Programs like this put northern-grown peas, lentils, chickpeas and other pulse ingredients directly in front of food professionals who have the ability to develop products, influence ingredient decisions and create new demand.

From the Field to the Food Lab

The course went well beyond classroom presentations. Participants worked directly with pulse and dry bean ingredients in NCI's specialized processing facilities, exploring extrusion,

beverages, pasta, milling and baking.

Hands-on demonstrations showed how different pulse and bean flours perform in real-world

applications. Participants experimented with products ranging from texturized and extruded

foods to pasta, beverages and baked goods.

Among the products demonstrated were chocolate yellow pea milk, yellow pea flour pizza crust, black bean brownies, blueberry muffins made with yellow pea flour and a chickpea-based pie crust.

Participants also worked in teams to develop their own food products, taking an idea through

formulation, processing and sensory evaluation.

The program connected that technical experience with discussions about nutrition, ingredient functionality, consumer acceptance and the process of moving a new food product toward commercialization.

Creating Demand Through Education

This is where NCI's role becomes especially valuable to producers.

Located in the heart of the Northern Plains, Northern Crops Institute brings food companies,

technical experts, buyers and international customers directly to the region where many of these crops are grown. NCI is a collaborative effort involving North Dakota, Montana, South Dakota and Minnesota and works to expand domestic and international markets for northern-grown crops.

For growers, the connection is straightforward: the more food manufacturers understand how to successfully use pulse ingredients, the greater the opportunity to build new markets for the crops produced here.

A participant from India described the 2026 program on social media as an opportunity to learn alongside food innovators from around the world and highlighted the hands-on experience of using pulse ingredients in pasta, extruded snacks and baked products.

Those experiences can have an impact long after participants leave Fargo. An idea tested in an NCI laboratory can become a product concept. A food scientist introduced to pea or chickpea flour can become a future customer. An international participant who learns how to formulate with U.S. pulses can take that knowledge back into another market.

Investing Beyond Today's Crop

Northern Pulse Growers Association's involvement in programs at NCI is part of a much larger

effort to connect production agriculture with research, processing, food innovation and market development.

For growers in Montana and North Dakota, investments in facilities and programs like these are ultimately about looking beyond the next crop year.

They are about creating more ways to use what our growers produce.

They are about putting U.S.-grown pulses in front of the people developing tomorrow's foods.

And they are about ensuring northern pulse growers continue to have a seat at the table as the global food industry looks for nutritious, functional and versatile ingredients.

From a field in Montana or North Dakota to a food development lab in Fargo — and potentially

to a new product on a shelf halfway around the world — that is how market development

begins.