June 6, 2011
BY Charlie Staff
Distillers grains as a feed and food ingredient has been my passion for over 25 years, beginning with the whiskey industry and extending through the recent explosive growth of the fuel ethanol industry. At times, it has been difficult to observe those who focus solely on ethanol and dismiss the back end with a “get what you can with what we have” attitude. In many cases, distillers grains quality, consistency and value has been approached as a by-product instead of a valuable coproduct.
Understandably, the rapid growth of the industry has required learning new business principles and developing sharper management and marketing skills, leaving little time for focusing on increasing demand for distillers grains. There has been sparse communication with and little understanding of the animal feeding industry, a diverse group with varying needs who are resistant to change unless convinced there is a safe, reliable and substantial economic advantage to do so.
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Thanks to financial support from many, there is now a good base of knowledge gained from university animal feeding studies on the nutritional value of DDGS for most animals. There is a real need, however, to convey this information to users, as I learned this past year when talking to dairymen and other feeders. About 10 to 20 percent feed no distillers and 30 to 50 percent feed low levels. There is a real opportunity to expand DG markets by at least 40 percent. In fact, Dr. Daniel O’Brien, Kansas State University, reported at the Distillers Grains Symposium last year that 65 million tons of DDGS could be used in domestic animal feeds.
To penetrate that potential, work is needed to improve product consistency and nutritional quality through reducing the variation in solubles, lowering sulfur levels and maintaining consistent fat and moisture content. Many fuel ethanol producers are well aware of that need and steadily are improving, but unfortunately, the industry is judged by those not focused on quality.
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A new area of concern surrounds “striking oil”—corn oil. Current estimates indicate 20 percent of ethanol producers have installed corn oil extraction and others are soon to follow. Two swine nutritionists speaking at the 2011 Distillers Grains Symposium in May raised their concerns that removing corn oil in DDGS will reduce the digestible energy content for swine. Animal nutritionists working with poultry, beef and dairy echo that concern. Just how much this reduction in fat content will affect nutritional energy values in rations remains to be determined, and several universities are seeking funds for studies. Widely varying fat content will be a concern, so we hope those removing corn oil will be very open and explicit with their distillers grains customers. Removing a valuable nutritional component from the animal and human food chain to be used as biodiesel feedstock raises another concern in the food versus fuel discussion. Yet, with low margins and uncertain incentives, it is quite reasonable that the ethanol industry would want to aggressively push forward.
Distillers grains are a positive contributor to the ethanol industry in other ways. Early life-cycle analyses regarding ethanol’s energy balance, greenhouse gas emissions and land use resulted in disappointingly low values until distillers grains was correctly added to the calculations. The recent Renewable Fuels Association publication, “Fueling a Nation—Feeding the World,” very importantly points out that grain used to produce ethanol also produces a valuable lower-cost coproduct used to feed animals—an important component in human food. In fact, in many animal-feeding situations there is evidence that distillers grains is a better and more economical feed ingredient than the grain from which it was produced.
All of this indicates there is a real opportunity for ethanol producers to understand the value that distillers grains provides this industry. The urgent task for all is to communicate feeding values clearly before product changes are made, telling your customers what is occurring so they can make the proper adjustments. None of us like surprises.
Author: Charlie Staff
Executive Director, Distillers Grains Technology Council
(502) 852-1575
chstaf01@louisville.edu