Corn gluten meal price

Corn gluten meal is a protein feed, fed to raise a ration's crude-protein content. On a dry-matter basis it runs about 66.3% crude protein and 89% TDN, roughly 0.94 Mcal of net energy for lactation per pound of dry matter, at about 91% dry matter as fed. Those figures come from University of Arkansas Cooperative Extension, Composition of Selected Livestock Feeds (FSA3043), from NRC Beef Cattle 1996 + Dairy One. Single reporting source. The leaderboard uses them to convert each USDA report week's board price into a cost per pound of protein and per pound of energy, so it can be ranked against corn and soybean meal. Prices are quoted per ton, and the cheapest board price is not the cheapest fed price once freight and moisture are counted (see the FOB-vs-delivered guide). Corn gluten meal is the concentrated protein pulled from the same wet-milling process that produces gluten feed and corn starch; the two names are easy to confuse but are not interchangeable, since meal runs far higher in protein and price. Poultry integrators are its signature buyer, prizing the xanthophyll pigments that color egg yolks and broiler skin, a trait few other protein feeds offer. It also digests slowly enough to work as a bypass protein in dairy rations, and pet food makers use it as a plant protein base. Coming from the same limited wet mills as gluten feed, its supply follows corn sweetener demand, not any protein crop.

Gluten here means corn protein, pulled out at a wet mill. The Corn Refiners Association describes the process: corn soaks for 30 to 40 hours in warm water carrying a little sulfur dioxide, then is split into its four basic components, starch, germ, fiber and protein. The protein is spun out of the starch stream by centrifuge and dried. EPA's profile of the industry puts that gluten at 60 to 70 percent protein, and USDA quotes the meal against a 60 percent spec. The fiber and steep liquor go the other way, into the far cheaper corn gluten feed.

Nobody runs a wet mill for the meal. EPA describes the industry as making starch, syrups, oil, sugar and alcohol, with gluten feed and gluten meal as co-products. The tons that exist in a given month are set by the mill's grind for those products, not by anyone's appetite for protein, so supply barely answers to the meal's own price. There is no harvest rush either: the mills draw on stored corn, and the U.S. Grains Council sells the U.S. product to importers on steady, high-volume supply with uniform specs, set against seasonal origins.

Poultry pays for color, dairies for bypass protein. Extension poultry specialists note the meal carries xanthophyll, the pigment that deepens egg yolk color, and Feedipedia adds broiler skin and fat to the list, so a layer or broiler formulator is buying a trait soybean meal cannot supply at any price. Dairies want something else: NDSU Extension notes the meal is high in bypass protein, the fraction that escapes breakdown in the rumen. Its lysine runs low, so it sits beside soybean meal in a ration rather than replacing it.

Pet food, fish feed and export buyers want the same tons. The Grains Council lists poultry, aquaculture and pet food as the meal's markets, and the Corn Refiners Association notes poultry and pet food processors value it for its high digestibility. Export is a buyer class of its own: the Council promotes U.S. corn gluten meal overseas on Gulf and barge logistics, and Feedipedia counts the United States as the major supplier of world exports.

The lawn market answers to a different customer. Nick Christians at Iowa State University found in 1986 that corn gluten meal keeps germinating weed seeds from forming roots, and it has sold since as a natural pre-emergent herbicide. Iowa State's research program notes it also carries 10 percent nitrogen by weight, so it fertilizes the lawn it protects. Homeowners buy it by the bag, a long way from the bulk ton a feed mill prices.

Priced against soybean meal, quoted at a handful of points. Corn's price moves the mill's cost for everything it makes, but gluten meal's own price is argued out against soybean meal on protein, plus whatever a poultry buyer will pay for the pigment. USDA quotes it at only a few points, while DDGS quotes out of many regions because dry-grind ethanol plants dot the Corn Belt. The cost-per-protein board puts the latest USDA price on a per-pound-of-protein footing and the corn gluten meal vs soybean meal table on this page shows the gap to the benchmark. Our guide to the corn gluten meal market walks through the drivers one at a time.

Corn gluten meal vs soybean meal. Corn gluten meal is a bypass (rumen-undegradable) protein, roughly 57 to 60 percent of its protein escaping the rumen versus about 25 percent for soybean meal, so the two feed different protein fractions. Feedipedia notes corn gluten meal is low in lysine, so it complements rather than replaces soybean meal.