U.S. Grains Council (USGC) representatives participated in the 2016 International Production & Processing Expo held this week in Atlanta, Georgia, to meet with importers of U.S. coarse grains and co-products.
The annual trade show and conference, commonly known as the Atlanta Poultry Show, is the largest annual trade show for the poultry, meat and feed industries, attracting some 30,000 attendees from around the world and offering an opportunity for scientific presentations from leading poultry researchers.
The large delegation of Latin American importers stands out in the show, interested in getting to know and strengthen their commercial relationships with suppliers from the United States. Luis Bustamante, marketing specialist in the USGC Western Hemisphere office, and Neil Campbell, USGC consultant in Canada, attended on behalf of the Council to specifically serve this constituency.
In programming associated with the show, Marta Viguie, a graduate student studying with Dr. Peter Ferket of North Carolina State University, presented a study done with funding from the Council that demonstrated the added value of carotenoid pigments from including corn distiller’s oil (CDO) in poultry rations.
These pigments are naturally occurring substances that can affect egg color and the skin color of broilers, important in overseas markets that prefer a yellow-skinned chicken and a dark yellow egg yolk.
Currently, CDO is sold only for its energy value in either biodiesel or feed. The 56-day feeding trial showed that carotenoids could be transferred to broilers, offering an additional premium of $0.05 of value per kilogram of CDO.
Though the results of the study are preliminary, they suggest capturing the added value from CDO’s carotenoid pigments could translate into an additional $60 million in revenue for the ethanol industry as a whole. According to the Renewable Fuels Association, the U.S. ethanol industry produced 2.5 billion pounds of corn distiller’s oil in 2014.
It was announced at the show that Viguie won an award for excellence in graduate research for this project, further demonstrating its importance and the relevance of this project to the poultry industry and scientific community.
The Council is already planning a feed trial in Mexico to demonstrate the results to customers there and is also planning future research to build on the findings with members of the U.S. ethanol sector.
The full study is available here. More on the Atlanta Poultry Show is here.