Tired of Waiting on Washington, Ethanol CEO Bets on Animal Feed

by Kim Chipman (Bloomberg) Green Plains Inc. Chief Executive Officer Todd Becker is getting closer to his goal of never having to worry about U.S. ethanol policy again. Instead of awaiting Washington’s next move in the industry’s battle with Big Oil for share of gasoline tanks, Becker is working to transform Green Plains into an agricultural technology company focused on extracting more oil and high-value proteins from corn, with ethanol merely a byproduct.

Last week, the company joined with asset management firm Ospraie Management LLC to buy a majority stake in Fluid Quip Technologies as part of Green Plains’ push to make protein-dense ingredients used in products like animal feed. Investors so far approve, with Green Plains’ stock rising 37% since Jan. 4, the day before the deal was announced.

“The world is protein-short,” Becker said in an interview. “Demand is insatiable.”

High-protein ingredients for pet food and growing markets such as aquaculture will become among Green Plains’ lead products, Becker said.

Fluid Quip’s technology, which Green Plains has already started using, enables dry-mill plants that typically sell ethanol byproducts for animal feed to extract more protein from corn.

As global incomes rise and more people start eating “higher quality meat,” such as fish, poultry and pork, animals need to be fed a better protein diet, Becker said.

Fluid Quip’s technology also allows Green Plains to nearly double the oil extracted from corn, which can be sold to a renewable diesel industry that’s seeing a shortage in vegetable and soybean oils, Becker said.

Ospraie’s Anderson said another “really exciting” part of Fluid Quip is clean-sugar technology, which can produce renewable chemicals used in consumer products from nutrition to packaging to make them more sustainable, or “green.” READ MORE