Building consumer trust to increase wheat demand will be a top priority for Sheri Glazier as she steps into her new role as executive director of the Wheat Foods Council on August 18. During a conversation with Oklahoma Farm Report Associate Farm Reporter Carli Davenport, Glazier said her lifelong connection to agriculture, combined with her experience as a registered dietitian, wheat farmer, cattle producer, and communicator, has uniquely prepared her to help connect consumers with the people and practices behind wheat production.
Glazier said agriculture has shaped her life from the very beginning. “Agriculture’s been part of my life my entire life,” Glazier said. “My earliest memories are riding in the back of a combine, taking a nap as a small child. I don’t know a summer without wheat harvest.”
She said her passion for nutrition also developed early through her involvement in 4-H, eventually leading to a career that has focused on helping consumers better understand food production. “I really have a mission of just enhancing the voice for rural Oklahoma and rural America so people really understand what we do out here,” she said. “My business has been Dirt Road Dietitian. I know that no one drives by our road to see what we do, and if we don’t share our stories, someone else is writing them for us.”
Glazier believes her new position provides an opportunity to unite every aspect of her career. “I’m excited to connect the wheat piece of my life and the nutrition piece of my life and the learned marketing and communications piece and put all those things together to really elevate wheat foods and the people that produce them,” she said.
Building Consumer Confidence in Wheat
One of the Wheat Foods Council’s primary objectives is increasing domestic demand for wheat, and Glazier believes that starts with earning consumer trust. “If you share the story about the people behind the product, there’s a whole lot more trust that’s created,” Glazier said. “I just really, really want to highlight wheat producers and farmers and be able to share their stories.”
She said farming families have generations of experiences that deserve to be told. “We have multi-generational stories to tell,” she said. “Hopefully we can create a space where people can hear how their food ingredients have actually been raised and then through the process.”
Glazier also hopes to provide greater transparency into how wheat becomes food. “We just want to build some more trust back in the food piece of this industry because we really want people to be confident about the nutritional aspects that these foods provide,” she said. “There’s really no reason not to be, and we have to elevate this and better share this story.”
Creating a Trusted Resource for Consumers
Glazier plans to bring the same practical communication style that helped build her Dirt Road Dietitian platform to the Wheat Foods Council. “We eat the food that you eat too,” she said. “That kind of messaging—that we are just like you.”
She envisions creating an easily accessible online destination where consumers can find reliable information about wheat production. “I want to create that landing place, that one-stop shop for all things wheat foods,” Glazier said. “We’re not having to dig through all the internet worlds and piece some of these things together.”
Her goal is to make the Wheat Foods Council the trusted source for wheat information. “Then you just kind of have that hub, and it becomes that trusted source that everyone wants to go to when they want to know something a little bit more about that specific wheat food product or wheat thing,” she said.
Helping Farmers Tell Their Stories
Glazier believes one of agriculture’s greatest challenges is not how food is produced, but how those production practices are communicated. “Farmers, we do an excellent job of working,” she said. “We have always done an excellent job at working, and we’re not always great at telling our story.”
She said consumers are often far more interested in agriculture than producers realize. “People were so curious and so intrigued and had no idea that there was this much research and all the layers that are involved in it,” Glazier said, reflecting on educational events she previously hosted focused on wheat.
She emphasized that producers should have confidence in sharing their work. “We know that we are super confident in how we’re producing wheat. We just want to keep that consumer confidence up and increase it even more.”
As she begins working with producers across the country, Glazier said she is eager to learn about the differences in regional agriculture. “Agriculture is so regional,” she said. “What you see at your back door versus what you see 800 miles away is going to be very, very different because they’re using their resources to the best of their ability.”
Laying the Foundation for the Future
Although Glazier officially begins her new position on August 18, she said much of her initial work will happen behind the scenes. “There will be a lot of work on the back end,” she said. “My goal is to set a very, very, very firm foundation. We want to make sure our foundation is firm with where we want to move on from there.”
She also wants the Wheat Foods Council to become a valuable resource not only for consumers, but for wheat organizations across the country. “The hub needs to be built for consumers, but also for other state wheat organizations and wheat commissions to have a place where they can come to be able to use those resources in their states too, so we’re not duplicating efforts,” Glazier said.
With experience launching new initiatives throughout her career, she is looking forward to building the organization’s next chapter. “I’ve had a history of starting things from scratch,” she said. “I have the opportunity to kind of do a refresh or restart in this space. In the beginning, we’ll have to be a little bit patient, but we’re working really, really hard on the back end.”
