November 14, 2012
Ensus imports EU corn due to poor UK wheat quality
Ensus, bioethanol producer, has confirmed it has begun to buy EU corn within the last week to compensate for the poor quality of the UK wheat crop.
"We are committed to using UK wheat but this is an exceptional year," said Stewart Easdon, Ensus' wheat and animal feed manager. Using corn was a means of getting production up to the level expected in a "normal" year, he said. "We need to balance off the wheat with a higher starch product."
The lower starch yield and bushel weight of UK wheat this year had presented challenges in terms of handling the increased volume needed and in quality and ethanol yield terms, he said.
"We are trialling it to see how it goes - we do not envisage going to 100% corn," Easdon said.
The plant is taking in about 80,000 tonnes a month of raw material but Easdon would not be drawn on the proportion of corn used to that of wheat.
The corn was costing roughly the same at intake as home-grown wheat but has higher starch content. The resulting animal feed co-product of distillers' dried grains and solubles from the wheat/corn mix would be slightly higher in oil but slightly lower in protein than that from an all-wheat feedstock, said Easdon.