U.S. Grains Council Conducts Targeted Global Starch Engagement

Recently, U.S. Grains Council (USGC) Manager of Global Strategies and Trade Alexander Grabois traveled to Taiwan and Indonesia to conduct meetings with local industrial starch stakeholders looking to manage broken corn within a wet milling plant and best practices to maximize optimizations and efficiency.

This comes as a follow-up engagement to the Council’s Third Annual Industrial Starch Conference, held in June, and as a further development of the Council’s industrial corn starch study that shows U.S. corn has two to four percent more starch extractability than corn from other origins.

“The findings from the study’s lab and commercial results are indicative of higher starch yields, which can have a significant impact on a wet mill’s yields and overall output. We have taken this opportunity to better understand the specific market challenges in Asia and Southeast Asia and show those already purchasing U.S. corn ways to maximize their production and earning potential,” Grabois said. “Our studies show that by implementing simple processing changes, yields can increase by several additional percentage points. This, coupled with the higher starch yields of U.S. corn, can translate to multiple millions of dollars of additional annual revenue for wet mills.”

As the Council’s industrial starch project develops, its focus will be on gathering results from operational wet mills to supplement years of lab data and working with individual plants to provide expertise and insight on how to apply the information. For instance, U.S. corn requires only 24 hours of steeping, half the time compared to harder endosperm corn, resulting in notable output increases without the need for producers to invest in new equipment. The Council hopes to share techniques that further decrease steeping times for wet millers as a result of the starch study and its associated programs.

“As we continue to speak with clients around the world, we hear about their experiences using U.S. corn and have found it to be of paramount importance to provide the necessary tools and resources so they can manage U.S. corn in a manner that will allow customers to maximize its potential,” Grabois said. “It is a priority to work on changing the global perception around U.S. corn, while working with clients to manage the key issues they face.”

Learn more about the Council’s work in corn and corn co-products here.