Japanese feedstuff manufacturer cuts corn in animal feed
Chubu Shiryo Co Ltd, a leading Japanese feedstuff manufacturer, has started making some animal feed with less corn as the price of corn continues to rise, a company official said on Monday.
According to Reuters, the official said that the move will not immediately affect the volume of Japanese corn imports, though this could change when the company starts reducing corn volumes in a broader range of feeds.
Chubu Siryo started feed shipments for egg-producing chickens this month, with the use of corn cut from 50% to 30%, the average mix in compound feed for chickens in Japan, the official said. It plans to extend the move to feed used for pigs as well, although the official declined to set a timeframe for this.
The company increased the proportion of alternatives, primarily corn meal and wheat bran, without damaging the nutrition quality, helped by a processing technology the company has developed to improve the cost of processing feed from meal, he said.
"Our improved processing facility has enabled us to beef up the recycling of meal, which hadn’t been done previously, as a way to contain the cost of rising corn prices," the official said, adding that the company aimed to eventually reduce the use of corn to around 10%.
Japan’s annual compound feed output is about 24 million tonnes. About 40% of compound feed is for chickens and 25% for pigs.
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