A lot of work is behind the million tonnes of soybeans produced by farmers. The effort of farmers to produce soybeans has to be complemented with the effort and care of those who handle the beans after harvesting. Once the soybeans are mature, they are subjected to several operations whose purpose is to keep as much as possible the original quality of the beans. The goal is to maintain the quality at harvest and ensure a continuous supply to processing industries or consumers.

The following operations are mostly carried out in the sequence in which they are mentioned. Sometimes, some of them have to be repeated if the beans are in risk of spoilage or deterioration. The post-production operations include harvest, pre-drying, threshing (this operation is done simultaneously with harvesting when the beans are harvested by combines), transport, pre-cleaning, drying, cleaning and sorting, packaging, storage and processing.