Buying and the market
FOB plant vs delivered: freight in feed buying
FOB plant is the price of a feedstuff at the mill or ethanol plant door, before any freight, and it is the number the board leads with. Add the haul and a delivered price can run well above it, which is why the cheapest board quote is not always the cheapest feed at the farm.
Updated Jul 10, 2026
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FOB plant is the price of a feedstuff at the mill or ethanol plant door, before a foot of freight. It is the number USDA quotes for most feedstuffs and the one the board leads with, and it is not what the feed costs once it reaches the farm. Add the haul and a delivered price can run well above the board, which is why the cheapest quote is not always the cheapest feed.
What FOB plant means
FOB stands for free on board. An FOB-plant price means the buyer takes ownership at the plant and pays the freight from there, so two buyers at different distances pay the same FOB price and very different delivered prices. USDA also reports some feedstuffs on a delivered basis, and the reports mark which is which. Reading a feed price without knowing its basis is reading half a number.
Freight and the haul radius
Feed is a freight business because most feedstuffs are heavy and cheap per ton, so the haul is a big share of the delivered cost. A feedstuff that is a bargain at the plant can lose that edge over a couple hundred miles of trucking, and a dearer feed made next door can beat it at the farm. That is the haul radius, the distance a feedstuff can travel before freight eats its advantage. Wet feeds have the shortest radius because you are paying to move water, dry ones the longest.
The cheapest board price is not the cheapest fed price
Put a number on it, and read this as illustrative because freight moves with the lane and the season. Say a feed is 150 dollars a ton FOB the plant and the haul runs 15 dollars a ton nearby or 45 dollars a ton from far off. The same board feed lands at 165 or 195 delivered, and against a local feed at 175 delivered the far one is the worse buy despite the identical board price. Freight is not a rounding error on a heavy, cheap feed. It is part of the price.
Worked example
The table above is a live regional board, each feedstuff with its FOB-plant or delivered basis marked. Compare like with like: an FOB price and a delivered price are not the same number, and the basis column tells you which you are looking at. To rank feeds on what the nutrient costs, take these prices to the leaderboard; to know what lands at your farm, add your own freight.
The Ration reports the USDA feedstuffs prices and their FOB-or-delivered basis as published. It carries no freight feed, so any freight figure here is illustrative, and your delivered cost is the board price plus your own haul.
Try it
Delivered cost per ton is the board price plus freight and handling, divided by (1 − shrink) to spread the loss over the feed that survives. Freight converts to $/ton from a per-load rate (rate ÷ load weight) or a per-mile rate (rate × miles ÷ load weight). The dry-matter cost divides by the dry-matter fraction; cost per pound of protein and energy then divides by 2,000 lb times the nutrient percent, using the same CP/TDN/DM book values as the site's leaderboard (from named extension and NRC feed tables, listed on the methodology page). The corn and soybean-meal comparison uses this week's board price for each. This is a price screen on one or two nutrients, not a feeding recommendation: inclusion limits, amino-acid balance, effective fiber and palatability are the nutritionist's call.
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Now look at the live data
Common questions
What does FOB plant mean for feed?
The price at the mill or ethanol plant door, with the buyer paying freight from there. Two buyers pay the same FOB price and different delivered prices depending on how far the feed travels.
Why is the cheapest feed price not the cheapest feed?
Because freight can add more than the price gap between two feeds. A cheap feed hauled a long way can land above a dearer feed made nearby, since most feedstuffs are heavy and cheap per ton.
What is a haul radius in feed buying?
The distance a feedstuff can travel before freight erases its price advantage. Wet feeds have a short radius because the haul is partly water; dry feeds travel much farther.