New Animal Feeds for New York Farmers

(Specialist Nutrition) What does Specialist Nutrition do? Specialist Nutrition is an Irish company that handles byproducts, primarily from the drinks industry. We manage the spent grain byproducts from the brewing and distilling industry in Ireland and sell these high-protein byproducts as a moist feed direct to Irish farmers. For example, we handle the distiller’s grains from Irish Distillers in Cork and Bushmills in Northern Ireland.

You’ve just announced an expansion into the US market. What will that mean for the business?

We’ve just signed a five-year deal valued at €135m to supply byproducts from a US ethanol plant in upstate New York as animal feed to local dairy farmers. This is our first investment outside of Ireland and we’ve just opened up a small office in Syracuse, New York.

This is very much a partnership between Specialist Nutrition, the company that owns the ethanol plant, Attis Industries, and the local farmers. We will buy the spent grain byproduct from the ethanol plant and we will sell it direct to farmers. Shipping the byproduct direct from the ethanol factory to farms also ensures the supply chain is fully traceable. We will manage the logistics and appoint hauliers to deliver the byproduct to farms. By keeping the infrastructure of this process to a minimum cost, we can offer real value to US dairy farmers with this feed.

Up to now, Attis has been drying the wet byproduct into dried distiller’s grains, which is a huge energy-intensive process. Selling the wet product to us allows the company to reduce its carbon footprint and turn off its grain dryers. READ MORE