The event was led by a panel of six feed processing experts and attended by feed mill operators from more than 20 countries, representing the continents of Africa, America, Asia and Europe.

"Few symposia provide in-depth discussion on the actual process of feed production, yet it's a critical topic for the industry. Feed represents about 75% of the cost of animal production, and feed manufacturing represents about 10%," said Dr. Chris Nelson, President and CEO of Kemin. "This conference equipped attendees with tools they can use to improve efficiencies in their operations."

 

The panel provided educational, practical and business-focused insights that can be put in place to optimise the bottom line of feed production. Here are some highlights from the series of external expert presentations:

 

Juan Acedo-Rico González of Acedo-Rico & Asociados SL in Spain opened the conference with a discussion on feed technology trends and challenges for efficient manufacturing. He conducted an analysis on the main process involved in feed manufacturing and presented tools to improve feed operation costs, while also maximising quality, hygiene and security of the feed. He stressed the importance of controlling process weight losses, and to recover moisture losses during feed production. González said overall management and good training of the feed mill operators is key to managing feed production costs.

 

Peter De Cneudt of Spirax Sarco in Belgium focused on "Optimal Steam Quality" to improve press performance. He shared that it is beneficial to use saturated steam or slightly overheated steam. With saturated steam, there is a direct connection between temperature and humidity. This means if the temperature increase of the animal feed after steam injection is known, the humidity of the feed can be calculated. High quality steam for feed mill applications has a low variance in the dryness fraction. Because steam for conditioning can take up to 20% of energy costs in feed manufacturing, he believes it is important to carefully monitor steam use.

 

Diego Clivio of Geelen Counterflow in Argentina focused on "Optimal Cooling Process" and explained the theory of cooling. He described it as a process of heat and moisture transfer from the product to the air. He shared that air flow rate and temperature are important parameters of cooling. In a feed mill, air flow can be used to achieve evaporative cooling of pellets and to reduce moisture content of pellets. Air flow rate must be high enough to avoid condensation, and air moisture content can be measured using a relative humidity sensor. He concluded that high air flow rates will give more cooling by heat transfer, but less evaporation, whereas longer retention times will remove more water.