Council Promotes DDGS, Corn Fermented Protein Across Asia

Last month, the U.S. Grains Council (USGC) organized two major marketing conferences promoting U.S. corn fermented protein (CFP) and distiller’s dried grains with solubles (DDGS) in South Korea and Taiwan. Both countries are already important trade partners for U.S. agriculture but still have significant opportunities for growth in CFP and DDGS exports through increasing interest from the animal feed and aquaculture industries in the region.

USGC Manager of Global Trade Jace Hefner arrived in Taipei, Taiwan, on April 24 to meet with USGC Taiwan Director Michael Lu and review the latest Taiwanese market information in preparation for the next day’s conference.

“Taiwanese importers and U.S. producers enjoy a strong relationship that results in billions of dollars in sales each year, but the Council and its partners are still working to find avenues to new buyers and introduce different uses to consumers to build an even stronger bond between the U.S. and Taiwanese industries,” Lu said.

The next day, Hefner and Lu visited Charoen Pokphand Enterprise, Taiwan’s leader in poultry integration, to speak with its international trade department about the superior quality of U.S. corn in poultry diets and market outlooks for U.S. corn and DDGS.

The Council’s Symposium of U.S. Corn Products’ Application and Sustainability began later that day and after an introduction from Erich Kuss, chief at the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Office of Agricultural Affairs in Taiwan, Hefner presented on U.S. corn’s superior performance in animal feed rations and spoke on a panel addressing the sustainability efforts of U.S. producers.

Hefner continued to Seoul for the Council’s DDGS and CFP Trade Conference on April 30 where three U.S. CFP and DDGS suppliers – The Andersons, Green Plains and International Feed – participated in panels and presentations. The Council organized the conference to introduce high-protein CFP products to the Korean market, which is already the second largest importer of U.S. DDGS, to continue expanding exports to the country. The U.S. producers spoke to the 80 feed industry buyers and research personnel in attendance on the excellence of their products and market and logistics outlooks, and in the afternoon spent time in one-on-one consultation meetings with buyers.

“South Korea is among the top seafood-consuming countries in the world and its aquaculture industry is expanding to meet the demand,” Hefner said. “Putting U.S. DDGS and CFP producers and exporters in the room with South Korean buyers will undoubtedly increase awareness of how these feed additives improve yields and generate future sales as a result.”

The morning kicked off with a presentation on CFP’s characteristics and applications in swine diets and a panel discussion that included Hefner and USGC Director in Korea Haksoo Kim.

The event concluded with a visit to an eel farm in Gochang to learn about the possibility of supplying CFP products for aquaculture feed and a tour of the container unloading and storage processes of U.S. DDGS and CFP products at Gwangyang Port, where 80 percent of DDGS imports arrive in Korea.

“Approximately 2,000 tons of CFP products were imported into the Korean market in the first quarter this year, a first for the country,” Kim said. “I expect this to increase to over 100,000 tons within the next few years and U.S. CFP products have the potential to compete with South American soybean meal in aquaculture, broiler and piglet feed.”