Southeast Asia’s imports of U.S. corn gluten meal (CGM) has swelled this past year by 47 percent, nearly reaching 400,000 metric tons. This is a vital market for U.S. CGM with three of the top 10 U.S. export markets located in the region.

Indonesia alone, the largest overall market, accounted for 25 percent of the U.S. export market, importing more than 256,000 tons of CGM in 2013, valued at $176 million—a 36 percent increase from 2012. This record level of U.S. CGM imports was driven by a large demand for a high-quality protein source from Indonesia’s poultry industry.

The U.S. Grains Council recognized and responded to this demand. Indonesia’s growing poultry sector, currently the third largest poultry producer in Southeast Asia (with the potential to become the top producer), lacked technical and trade information about corn co-products, which limited their adoption and import.

The Council responded with concentrated trade servicing efforts.

“We conducted several workshops and meetings to encourage end-users to utilize CGM as a cost-effective, high-quality protein source this past year,” said Adel Yusupov, USGC regional director for Southeast Asia. “We also introduced corn gluten meal as a highly-valuable protein source that can be used in combination with other U.S. feed ingredients in aqua diets.”

“Even with this large increase, there is still work to be done,” Yusupov said. “The Council’s overall long-term objective for Indonesia is to win an increasing share of the growing demand for U.S. coarse grains and co-products through intensive market education.”