Half way mark

Well I have reached the half way point of my trip, but we still have many interesting meetings and activities scheduled before I return home. First I woul like to apologize for not being faithful to this blog. Now that the representative from SunOpta, Peter G., has joined us, we have been spending a lot of time going to meetings and socializing with our fellow American. Peter arrived Wednesday morning, just as our schedule started to fill up with meetings. We were all very excited to meet with him because we have had several conference calls with him in the past six months, and now we finally got to meet him. Just as we had expected, Peter is a wonderful man. He does all of the traveling for SunOpta’s international expansion plans. He is quite a worldly man with a great outlook on the world’s soymilk market and life in general.

Yesterday morning we met him in our lobby for a quick briefing before our first meeting together. Then we went to a joint meeting that we set up with Rajeev, an accountant from ProSoya (a company that currently has soymilk products and manufacturing facilities in India), and Sushila, a registered dietician who is very familiar with soymilk and the health benefits for the Indian society. This meeting was delightful. Both Sushila and Rajeev were already friends, and the entire meeting was filled with positive interactions. Even though Sushila was interested in meeting with our group another time for dinner, it does not seem that she can fit us into her schedule before we leave Mumbai. We have set-up another meeting with Rajeev for tomorrow to exchange samples of soymilk and have lunch together. I am sure that this meeting will be nothing but enjoyable since he is such a genuine and sincere man.

After that meeting, we went right on to our next meeting with Godrej Hershey, even skipping lunch since there wasn’t enough time. Godrej Hershey is the largest soymilk producer in the Indian market. They are actually the bottling company for ProSoya. Godrej used to be an independent company until Hershey joined their efforts and bought part of the company. There facilities are enormous, with an entire campus of offices and such. We each had to get our pictures taken there and had a personal badge made when we arrived. Unfortunately, they would not let us keep them as souvenirs since they needed to keep them for records in case we did any terrorist activity while on their premises. From there we went back to our hotel to grab a small snack, Somosas (a deep fried potato/vegetable filled puff which is delicious), before heading to the bar at our hotel. We waited there for two other students involved with the export exchange project with a different company exploring the Indian market. Julie and Kyle were both in our international business class last semester. It was really refreshing to see them and have them join us for dinner. We all went to dinner at a famous restaurant for foreigners (one of the only places in Mumbai that you will find people from all over the world). This restaurant/café/bar was also attacked by terrorists in November at the same time as the Taj Hotel. We had been to this place before one evening, but this time was much better, with more company (Julie, Kyle, and Peter) and AC seating!

Today was quite an interesting day all around. I woke up feeling the worst case of homesick. We met with Peter at our hotel again (he is staying in a much nicer, high class hotel called the Taj Presidente) and then headed out for our first meeting. Ruchi Soya, the largest soybean company in India, was a very hospitable company, even though the man we were supposed to meet with was unexpectedly out of town. While we waited, we were greeted with plates of raw nuts, crackers, and raisens (all of which were very delicious). Then a very knowledgeable man who works for their company met with us. He was very helpful, and we might even get a chance to meet the original guy sometime while we are in New Delhi next week. When that meeting ended we failed to find a Cool Cab (a taxi with AC), and rode hot and sweaty to what we were told was a food market so that we can do research. Well, it turned out that the taxi driver dropped us off at a mall instead. For the sake of cooling off in the AC, we decided to grab some lunch at the mall and then try again to get to a supermarket. This worked out fine. By the time we were done at the supermarket, we were ready to take a nap and get into our air conditioned hotel rooms. We rested until dinner time, where we set up a meeting with Peter at his hotel to learn how to do a proper cutting, tasting of different flavors and brands of soymilk. Peter showed us how to taste test soymilk and different ways to evaluate their quality. I really enjoyed this, mostly because I am a huge foodie who loves to learn anything and everything about the food industry.

The rest of the evening was paradise. Julie and Kyle met us at Peter’s hotel after our cutting training. Then we went down to the bar in Peter’s high-class hotel. We enjoyed a drink there, and then we went to this amazing Thai restaurant, which was also located in Peter’s hotel. I have always liked Thai food, but now I can honestly say that unless I ever travel to Thailand, I will never find food quite like what I experienced tonight. I ordered red curry with vegetables and crushed peanuts. Of course we all had to try each others’ entrees, so I also got to enjoy some butternut squash, green beans with garlic (fresh carrots on the side!), seaweed asparagus, some real pad thai, plus a wonderful bottle of South African cabernet/merlot. I felt like the service and food could top anything that the White House would have to offer. Oh yea, on top of that, Peter took care of the bill at both the bar and at dinner!

Speaking of food, it hit me two days ago that we are always leaving restaurants with unfinished meals, and there are plenty of hungry people everywhere that are begging for money to eat. So it began two days ago with Beth’s leftovers from McDonalds (our one and only McDonalds experience in India) that I packed up the leftovers and gave them to someone on the street. It seems like such a simple concept, and it is definitely easy enough to do. Today I gave away my lunch leftovers to a girl who lives on the street of our hotel. On my way back from buying mineral water, I was overwhelmed with happiness to see her and another little boy sharing our leftovers, grateful to be eating. My preference is to not give food to people close by our hotel, since they will try to prey on us every chance they get. But today was more than worth it. Plus we will only be in Mumbai at the West End hotel until Saturday (tomorrow), and then we move on to New Delhi for our last week.

Tomorrow we have our last meeting in Mumbai scheduled with Unilever. Then our plans consist of having lunch with Rajeev and sightseeing with Peter. Peter will also be joining us in New Delhi until next Wednesday. Next Thursday we are scheduled to visit the Taj Mahal in Agra, Friday more sightseeing/free day, and then I will leave at midnight Saturday morning for a 15 hours flight to Ohare. I hope to blog at least once or twice more before I return home, so please continue to check in and read about my experiences. I can’t wait to come home and see all of my loved ones!!!