Hence, the opportunity to be a part of two blooming industries along with added cost benefits have led to the staggering growth of the soybean crushing industry in the past 3 years. Additionally, the crushing industry receives an incentive in procuring raw materials as they do not have to pay any duties for importing soybean seeds, while oil refiners pay 15 percent customs duties on crude oil imports. Since the majority of the crush by-product is subjected to the feed market, the crushing industry is heavily dependent on the animal feed industry. From the aforementioned process, around 74 percent of the product is soybean meal that caters to the animal feed industry, while 19 percent of the output is the crude oil that is further refined to produce soybean oil. The dehulled beans are then mixed with a solvent to make crude soybean oil, while the wet meal is ground to make high (46 to 48 percent) protein content meals.

Primarily, the seeds are dehulled and the hulls are heated and ground to produce low (42 to 43 percent) protein content meals. A closer look at the soybean crushing process shows that it consists of 3 major steps: cleaning and dehulling soybean seeds, solvent extraction, and meal treatment. As such, the soy crush then caters to 2 different markets: oil and feed. The reason for this increased interest in the soy crushing sector is due to the fact that soybean seeds can be crushed to give the two main outputs: crude oil and soy meal, which is a major animal feed ingredient. Import of Soybean in Bangladesh | Source: USDA In a span of one year, the import of soybean seeds rose from 1.3 million metric tonnes to 2.5 million metric tonnes (around 92% increase) due to the growing capacity and demand from the leading crush players in the industry. A reflection of this growth can be seen in the total volume of soybean seeds imported in 2020. Large conglomerates like City Group and Meghna Group have recently increased their soybean crushing capacities to 7,000 metric tonnes and 5,500 metric tonnes per day, respectively. In recent times, there has been a growing trend among oil refineries to engage in the soy crushing sector. The emerging soy crushing sector and its competitive advantages Similarly, in the edible oil sector, consumption of major edible oils is currently at 2.7 million tonnes and is forecasted to be around 3.65 million tonnes by 2025.

From the HIES 2016 data, protein consumption per capita was estimated to be an average of 37 kg per year by 2020 and is expected to grow at a CAGR of 2.07 percent in the next 5 years. Since more people could afford better quality food, regularly consumed items like edible oil and protein experienced a growth. As a result, the expenditure per capita of the country increased from USD 1,470 in 2020 to USD 1,600 in 2021. Even during the pandemic, while neighboring countries were experiencing a negative trend in their GDP growth rate, Bangladesh’s GDP per capita grew from USD 1,960 in 2020 to USD 2,130 in 2021. Bangladesh is one of the most prosperous countries in Asia and is expected to become the 26th largest economy in the world by 2030.

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