The American Green Products Consortium was started as a vehicle to connect potential soy product users with producers.
"As you move through the procurement process it needs to be coordinated and the consortium is meant to be a clearing house for that," said Rocky Black, director of bioproduct utilization and outreach for the Ohio Soybean Council.
If a local company, for example, wanted to buy some insulation made from soy the company could contact the consortium, which would provide information on where to find a seller of that type of insulation.
But with state agencies also playing that matchmaker role, the consortium is more of a soy bioproduct advocate now.
Meanwhile, the website provides a lot of background information on soybean-based products.
There's even an interactive section where visitors can view the many different uses of soy-based products that can be used around the house, such as carpet, printer toner, glass cleaner or shampoo.
"We need to get (the products) into the mainstream stores and we're hoping to help do that," said Black.
The site also provides information about where those products can be purchased.
"Obviously, not all of the products are on there, but it gives you a good idea of the products that are available," said Coleman. "It's a place where businesses and consumers can go in and find soy-based products as well as links and phone numbers to buy the products."
Unlike concerns about using corn as fuel in ethanol and allowing for less corn for food, there are no such concerns when it comes to soy, she said, since half of what's produced from a soybean is meal that is used mostly as livestock feed while the other half is oil.
Only about 2 percent of the soybeans grown in the U.S. are directly consumed by people.
While soy can be used to make candles or plastics for computer parts, it also can be used as a base for fuel, such as biodiesel fuel, though it may take many years for drivers to switch to such a fuel source.
"You're talking about a sea change when you're talking about changing from petroleum-based fuel to bio-based," said Black.
Increased use of soy-based products should benefit Ohio's economy because Ohio has approximately 26,000 soybean farmers and is the seventh-largest soybean producing state in the nation.
Industry officials say that soybeans already contribute about $1.9 billion to Ohio's economy.
About half of Ohio's soybeans are exported, but if there's greater demand from domestic soybean users, fewer soybeans could be exported, said Black.
He said a recent poll conducted by the soybean council shows that consumers say they'd buy bioproducts if they were available where they typically shop for other products and if the cost isn't 10 percent higher than traditional products.
Ohio soybean producers have long worked with Columbus-based research giant Battelle and earlier this summer The Ohio State University announced it will use soy-based toner in approximately 700 of its printers.
The use of soy in making products, especially non-food products, is hardly new.
Henry Ford once built a car made of soy-based products in the early part of the 20th century, said Black.
Soybeans are not indigenous to North America, but Asia and it wasn't until the 1920s when soybeans became a popular commercial crop in the U.S., RICK ADAMCZAK, Daily Reporter Staff Writer, Copyright 2010, The Daily Reporter, 580 S. High St., Columbus, OH., Nowadays, it can be found in anything from paint to fuel to plastics to
food products, and the expanded use of soy-based products can only
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