When you take a bite of your breakfast in the morning, do you think about where it somes from? It may come from a cow, a pig, or a chicken, but what did that animal eat? Corn, hay, Distillers Dried Grains with Solubules (DDGS)?

As consumers, we want to be assured that our food is produced with the highest-quality products. So when Michael Foods, Inc., one of the world’s largest egg-product producers, began its search for a feed product to keep its 10 million laying hens healthy and able to produce quality eggs for consumers, it took several factors into consideration.

The Minnetonka, Minn.-based company turned to POET, which operates several plants near Michael Foods’ Nebraska and Minnesota farms, and its Dakota Gold^® DDGS. Five years after switching from corn feed products to Dakota Gold DDGS, Michael Foods has found it to be an easy-to-use feed with a consistent nutritional value.

“We like the fact that POET does its own in-house testing to verify the DDGS meets their quality standards. POET also provides us with a nutrient analysis of its DDGS, so we can precisely balance our rations,” says Kevin Roberson, Ph.D., Poultry Nutritionist for Michael Foods. “It works well in our rations. We use the DDGS as a supply of amino acids and energy for our layers.”

DDGS is now recognized as a high-quality, nutritious feed product for a range of industries. It’s not out of necessity that these producers choose DDGS, but rather a decision based on their desire to raise high-quality and healthy animals.

FULFILLING A NUTRITIONAL NEED
Throughout the country, livestock producers are under pressure to create the best-quality food products. To help producers meet consumers’ high standards, DDGS has advantages over corn for feed in nutritional value and consistency.

POET’s Dakota Gold DDGS, for instance, is one such feed product with a consistent nutrient profile. It utilizes POET’s BPX™ process in which starch is converted to ethanol without heating or cooking, in turn achieving higher ethanol yields with lower energy input. This results in a Dakota Gold product with higher density, easier pelleting and enhanced flowability. Dakota Gold has a consistent profile that provides more nutrition than an equivalent amount of the corn from which it is derived.

“[As a result,] distillers grains make for a tremendous feed ingredient, with a nutritional value 20 percent higher than corn in terms of nutritional value for the animal,” says Matthew L. Gibson, Ph.D., Vice President of Technical Services and Marketing for POET Nutrition, Sioux Falls, S.D. “When we remove the starch, we concentrate the protein and we concentrate the fat, which makes the distillers grains have higher energy on a per-pound basis than corn.”

Because DDGS products like Dakota Gold are more nutrient-dense than corn, the most obvious advantage for producers in using DDGS as a feed supplement lies in the cost. “Depending on the market, it can be very cost-effective when compared to other feed ingredients on a per-unit-of-protein basis,” says Cody Wright, Ph.D., Extension Beef Specialist for South Dakota State University, Brookings, S.D. “Once you learn about the product and how DDGS can best be utilized in your ration, you can potentially reduce your feed input costs or increase your animal performance or, hopefully, both.”

Because of the nutritional advantages of DDGS, “you can balance a ration using DDGS and alternative feed stocks, along with a few other ingredients, to maintain high performance in the growth of your animals,” says Dennis Schrag, a farmer near Freeman, S.D.

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DDGS is a very palatable feed product, which helps to keep livestock eating, promoting better health. “When calves are brought in to the feedlot, they take to feed a lot better when it has a good taste and smell. The quicker an animal adapts to new feed, the healthier and more profitable it is,” Schrag says.

GROWING MARKETS
As DDGS increases in quality and consistency, so too have the markets for the feed products. “The ethanol industry has gone from being a very small part of the equation relative to agriculture to being one of the largest players in agriculture,” Wright says. “We’ve seen a tremendous expansion in the amount of distillers grains available for our producers to use across all species.”

Today, DDGS is used extensively for dairy, beef, swine and poultry, but other species may soon join the list. “We are seeing a lot of interest in aquaculture, especially warm-water fish like catfish and tilapia, even in crustaceans,” Gibson says. “We have even seen people looking at distillers grains for mink and pet foods for dogs and cats.”

Global markets are also opening up, taking a bite out of America’s trade deficit, particularly with Asia. “In the United States, we’ve got a freight container surplus, so it’s easy to put distillers grains into an empty freight container and send it to Taiwan or Japan,” Gibson says. “You can get roughly 20 tons of corn or 20 tons of distillers grains in a container. With DDGS, you get something that’s more nutrient-dense.”

It’s become clear to a wide variety of producers across the globe that DDGS offers a variety of benefits, ranging from high nutritional value to cost-effectiveness to superior storage and handling properties. It is no wonder, then, that the market seems poised to absorb as much as the ethanol industry can supply.

ON THE TABLE
The benefits of DDGS go far beyond the nutritional value by helping offset or replace the corn used in ethanol production. In fact, the DDGS produced in the refining process replaces about one-third of the corn that was put into the process in the first place. So while the food and fuel battle rages, it’s time to realize that it is not a battle—we can have both. And we will. Ethanol is fueling America, while, more importantly, DDGS is feeding the world.