Wheat fields are a special place for Joe Bippert, a native of Washington. Since joining USW in 2021 and moving his family to Manila, Bippert has partnered with millers, bakers, importers and government agencies to strengthen market access and promote U.S. wheat throughout South and Southeast Asia. Photo credit: USW.
Based in the Philippines, Joe Bippert works for U.S. Wheat Associates (USW) as the regional director for South and Southeast Asia. Since joining U.S. Wheat in 2021 and moving his family to Manila, he has partnered with millers, bakers, importers and government agencies to strengthen market access and promote U.S. wheat throughout the region.
Bippert braved an icy winter storm to join U.S. Wheat at the 2026 Joint USW/NAWG Winter Board Meeting, presenting on the work happening in his region. We sat down with him in between meetings with the Bangladesh ambassador, USW leadership and state wheat commissions to learn more about his background and U.S. Wheat’s work on the other side of the world.
Tell us about your journey from the family farm in Washington to working for U.S. Wheat in the Philippines.
That is quite a series of fortunate events for me! I’m originally from Olympia, Washington, or actually a small town called Tenino that is so small it was named after the number of the train – 1090 – that operated there.
I graduated from Brigham Young University in 2008 with a degree in commercial real estate. Now, many of you will remember that 2008 was a pretty rough year for the real estate market, so there weren’t too many jobs. So, I moved back to Washington, where I got a job working for the Washington State Department of Agriculture, running the budget for their food assistance program.
From there, I moved around and ended up working as a policy analyst for then Director Dan Newhouse, who now is a U.S. Congressman. Part of my portfolio was trade policy, and that’s where I fell in love with the idea of overseas market development.
Right before Governor Jay Inslee was going to make his first overseas trade mission to China, I was tasked to put together an ag delegation – three weeks before that mission set off for China. That was a bit of a rush, but I enjoyed setting up meetings with customers overseas and working with USDA and our offices in other countries. So, I applied for and got a position as the international marketing program manager with the Washington State Department of Agriculture, which got me exposure to all the commodity commissions and checkoff programs, including the Washington Grain Commission.
That’s where my wheat journey began. I ended up working for the Washington Grain Commission as the program director for five years, getting exposure to U.S. Wheat. I served as co-chair of the Transportation Working Group and got to know the trade teams that came to Washington and our staff from the overseas offices.
I got excited at the idea of maybe moving overseas, so when it was announced that Joe Sowers would be taking over the management of the USW Singapore Office, I called up Mike Spier and threw my name in the hat to join the U.S. Wheat team. Luckily, I was able to get that job and have lived in Manila since 2022.
The United States and the Philippines have a special diplomatic relationship. Why is it important that we have an office in Manila?
There’s a lot of history between the United States and the Philippines, as the country was a U.S. territory before World War II. They fought alongside us before being given their independence in 1946. There are many memorials in the Philippines that testify to that long-standing and positive relationship, including a national American cemetery that sits very close to our office.
That relationship has driven a lot of the trends we see in the Philippines, like their loaf bread. When the U.S. military introduced loaf bread into the Philippines, Filipino bakers wanted to give it their own twist. The result was a brand called Pinoy Tasty, a joint project of the Philippine government and the baking industry to provide affordable daily bread for consumers.
That influence of America really has created a lasting impression, and that long-standing relationship is something our customers there value. When we have an office that has been in place for almost 65 years, they talk about how the U.S. has been with them since the beginning of the milling industry and continues to support them as the milling industry grows.
Let’s talk about that support. Tell us about the members of the U.S. Wheat staff in the Philippines.
We have a great team in our USW Manila Office, starting with Adrian Redondo, our baking technologist. He replaced a long-time member of our team – Gerry Mendoza. When Ady took that job, it was stepping into this leadership role of being a teacher and mentor to the baking industry and teaching them about baking science. He’s taken that even one step further and moved it from the Philippines to a more regional role, helping with our UFM baking school in Bangkok, Thailand. We’re really proud of the work he is doing, including the online School of Wheat Quality, where we’re providing cereal science education to people in the region in their own language.
Then we have JC Roxas, our secretary. She’s incredible and makes sure that the office runs smoothly. She’s really stepped into a role where we’re asking her to do more with our social media presence as an office and as a region, so she’s running our LinkedIn page and is creating a lot of the content for that.
Jane Alpitche is our bookkeeper, and she is meticulous at making sure we’re in compliance, finding the numbers and making sure that we’re getting everything reported correctly.
And we’re very excited to introduce Tyllor Ledford as the new assistant regional director to the Philippines. We’re eager to have her skill set and to get her to work in the region!
The USW Manila Office covers more than just the Philippines. Delve into just how big and diverse the markets are in South and Southeast Asia.
I jokingly say that we cover everything from Pakistan to Papua New Guinea and everything in between, but we go as far south as Australia and New Zealand.
We’re seeing a lot of growth in markets like Bangladesh, and they’re starting to look a lot more like what the Philippines did several years ago. We’re seeing opportunities to introduce U.S. wheat quality into Bangladesh and take advantage of the Memorandum of Understanding that was signed in 2025.
But our region is full of all sorts of different ways to consume wheat. Primarily, it’s a noodle market and you see a lot of instant noodles in markets like Indonesia and Vietnam. But with growing trends in breads, cakes cookies, crackers and other high-end bakery products, you’re seeing more and more demand for U.S. wheat. Twenty years ago, we only had about 11% of all U.S. wheat exports going into the region, where today more than a quarter of all U.S. wheat exports enter our region.
U.S. Wheat not only capitalizes on those trends but also has a strength in working with multiple generations of milling and baking leaders. Tell us about the importance of continually providing education in the market.
There is a major generational shift happening in the Philippines and in other markets like Indonesia, Thailand and Vietnam, where a new generation of mill owners and mill managers are starting to come into the market.
Some of that is family, just like in farming. So, the message of farmers really resonates with them when our farmers talk about being part of a multi-generational farm. They like to think of themselves as a multi-generational mill. Some mills are on their third generation now and we are helping train them up through our programs like the Northern Crops Institute’s Grain Procurement for Importers Short Course or the Wheat Marketing Center’s Contracting for Value Workshop. We’re also bringing them to the United States on trade teams and sending them to Thailand to the UFM Baking School, where they’re learning baking science and technology.
Other mills are hiring more and more professionals and bringing them in from other industries, like health or even oil and gas. Those professionals are bringing their own skill sets and mindsets from other industries and transferring them over to the flour milling industry. It’s interesting to see how the industry is shifting and what opportunities exist for us as a major wheat provider.
There have been some really unique and exciting activities in the South and Southeast Asian Region. What has been one of your most memorable activities?
When I first arrived in the Philippines, the country’s anti-dumping tariffs on imported Turkish flour that had been in place since 2014 had kept those imports out of the market were expiring. The tariff was up for renewal and so my first trade team from the Philippines to the United States was a policy trade team with heavy hitters from the industry on both sides. Interestingly enough, that was also Tyllor Ledford’s first trade team that she helped coordinate from the U.S. side.
The culmination of that effort was a set of hearings back in the Philippines, where I was asked to testify, but I was in the United States for the NCI grain procurement course. That meant I was testifying virtually between the hours of midnight and 5:00 a.m. and then waking up at 8:00 a.m. to go to school! Luckily, the result was successful, and the Philippines extended the anti-dumping tariffs for another three years.
Vince Peterson used to say the sun never sets on the work of U.S. Wheat, and I can attest to the fact that it never really does. There is work happening all around the world, and our staff is always willing to go do the work, no matter what the circumstances.
Final question – what is your favorite product in the Philippines that is made with U.S. wheat?
My kids will not leave for school without a package of SkyFlakes in their lunch box. This is a saltine cracker made from U.S. soft white (SW) wheat. More than 15% of all the SW that goes into the Philippines goes into that little cracker – it’s a very common little snack. It’s just nice and tasty, satisfies a little craving and has a nice quality SW wheat in there.
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