When Experience Crosses Continents: A Conversation With Asif Abass

Our volunteer spotlight series continues, and this week, we're featuring Asif Abass, Managing Director at Bühler in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam, whose 15 years in rice are quietly reshaping how millers across Africa do their work.

For Asif, rice isn't just an industry. It's a craft he's spent fifteen years learning, and one he's now found a meaningful way to give back to.

Based in Ho Chi Minh City as Managing Director at Bühler, Asif has built a career around the deep technical knowledge that turns raw paddy into high-quality milled rice, a chain that, when done well, can transform the economics of an entire food business. When the opportunity came to share that expertise with food entrepreneurs through Partners In Food Solutions, the appeal was simple.

"I've worked in the rice industry for about 15 years, so over time I've built up a lot of practical experience. Volunteering with PFS felt like a good opportunity to share that knowledge in a way that could really help others. For me, it was a chance to give back and support businesses in a practical and meaningful way."

That phrase, practical and meaningful, captures something essential about how Asif shows up to the work. His engagements aren't abstract. They produce things you can hold in your hands, point to on a factory floor, or measure on a yield report.

With Sajo Farms and Rice Mills in Nigeria, Asif helped develop quality control standards for paddy purchase, designing standard operating procedures for arrival and inspection, lab reporting, and testing. These are the kinds of foundational systems that determine whether a mill's quality is consistent or chaotic, whether it can negotiate from a position of strength with suppliers, and whether it can grow.

He's also contributed to a resource that will reach far beyond any one project, helping PFS develop customized training materials on rice milling best practices, designed to support rice milling clients across the network for years to come.

And with Fursa Foods, also in Nigeria, Asif tackled one of the most consequential metrics in the rice business: head rice yield. The project's goal, increasing yield from 53% to 60%, sounds modest on paper. In practice, those seven percentage points represent significant additional revenue, less waste, and a more competitive business.

This is what fifteen years of expertise looks like when it crosses continents.

But ask Asif what's stayed with him most through the work, and the answer goes beyond technical wins.

"What stood out most to me was seeing that the advice and training actually led to real improvements. It was very rewarding to see partners take the recommendations seriously and upgrade their rice milling facilities. That kind of result gives a lot of satisfaction."

There's something powerful about that loop, expertise shared, advice taken, change implemented. It's also what keeps him engaged.

"My experience can make a real difference. When you see people learn something useful, apply it, and improve their business, it gives you a strong sense of purpose. That is something I find very motivating."

That sense of purpose connects to a broader excitement about Africa's food sector, a sector Asif sees as full of possibility.

"There is so much potential in the food sector, and it is inspiring to be able to contribute by sharing knowledge and supporting improvement in quality, efficiency, and operations."

It's a perspective that captures why the PFS volunteer model works so well in practice. The continent doesn't lack talent or ambition. What it benefits from is access, to the kind of specialized, hard-won expertise that takes a career to build.

Asif is one of many volunteers helping bring that access closer. Project by project. Mill by mill. Yield point by yield point.

And in doing so, he's helping prove something simple but powerful: when experience crosses continents, food businesses don't just improve. They rise.