Business of Good Health

by Susanne Retka Schill (Ethanol Producer Magazine) Thirty years ago, Bob Thornberg stepped away from ethanol in pursuit of fermentation’s feed and food derivatives. His vision grew into a thriving ag enterprise with multiple locations, global sales and a growing portfolio of products.

Bob Thornberg turns the ethanol business case on its head. When fermenting grains to make ProBiotein, he’s not using corn and he’s not interested in making ethanol. Acetic and lactic acid bacteria aren’t contaminants. And low and slow is the norm.

Thornberg is known in the ethanol industry for making SweetPro lick tubs, combining DDGS and condensed distillers solids (CDS) with minerals, vitamins and SweetPro’s “special sauce”—ProBiotein. A decade ago, Thornberg added food-grade production of ProBiotein. And this winter, the final stages in repurposing part of a long-shuttered ethanol plant will boost feed grade ProBiotein production and facilitate new feed lines aimed at non-ruminants. Gross sales tally around $14 million annually, supporting 36 employees in the company’s North Dakota and Kansas locations.

“We almost had to create a new industry of a molasses-free lick tub,” he says. “We had to develop all the equipment—we stomped the first barrels for the research work with our feet,” he recalls with a laugh. When sales began to grow, the Walhalla SweetPro plant, built in a former potato warehouse, was limited at 50 tons a day capacity. In 1996, Horton, Kansas, was chosen as the site for expansion, putting production closer to a bigger cattle market.

In 1998, Thornberg landed a Phase 1 Small Business Innovation Research grant to demonstrate the upgrading of wheat midds, a low-value byproduct of flour milling, from 18% protein to a 47% protein concentrate, in part through fermentation and the incorporation of yeast. A Phase 2 grant followed in 2000 to build a prototype plant in Walhalla.

As that work was being completed, the ethanol industry began to flourish, eliminating the concern about DDGS sourcing. Thornberg shifted the focus to producing a direct-fed microbial (DFM) feed. “DFM in the feed industry is more valuable,” he explains. “Distillers is a byproduct; dried at high temperatures; cooked at high temperatures; part of a heavy-duty process. It’s a great feed, don’t get me wrong. But we’re going at it from another perspective, where [DFM] is the primary product.”

ProBiotein is made through a fermentation process aimed at optimizing yeast production with cook and saccharification parameters kept as slow and gentle as possible to preserve enzymes and nutrients. The substrate mixture of wheat, flax, oats and barley broadens the amino acid profile of the fermented grains. Using malted barley adds enzymes, and flax adds omega 3 oils. Contributions from acetic and lactic acid bacteria are welcomed as added nutrients. Once fermentation ends, the beer is mixed with dry minerals and other ingredients to complete the feed supplement. There’s no beer well, no distillation, no centrifuges, and until recently, no dryers. What little alcohol is produced remains in the product.

The launch of ProBiotein also opened the door for feed supplements aimed at the horse market—SweetPro EquiPride and EquiLix.

The reception in the horse feed market was particularly good, Thornberg says, but one reaction prompted his next venture. “People were seeing stronger hooves, clearer eyes and improved coats on their horses. They began to wonder if it would be good for them, and they started eating it,” he recalls. “We said, ‘Don’t do that!’ … I was concerned. You could tell them all day not to, but if it’s working, they’ll keep doing it.”

Food not Feed
The food project started small, fermenting the same mixture of grains used in the feed version in a converted 300-gallon milk cooler in the kitchen of the former Dairy Queen in Walhalla. Seeing an opportunity, plans for a new building for feed production morphed into a food-grade facility.

The new venture, Food First LLC, began fermenting and drying ProBiotein for human consumption in 2012, packaged in 1-pound and 8-ounce containers. Food First also developed the MicroBiome Bar in four flavors, promoting them as a source of prebiotic fibers, omega-3 fatty acids, beta-glucans and fermented protein.

The ProBiotein.com website describes the product as a fermented functional food fiber made with organic wheat, oats, flax and barley malt. The fermentation process reduces the starches, concentrates the proteins and provides nutritional yeast, plus four prebiotic fibers, all of which support healthy gut function—where 70% of the immune system originates. READ MORE