Active in moist livestock feed since decades, Duynie has entered into long-term agreements with numerous suppliers of moist co-products. These suppliers – potato processors, beer breweries, sugar industry, grain-processing industry and vegetable and fruit processors – have significantly optimised their processes. As a result, Duynie receives product flows of a consistent and high quality.
“Our products are based on the residual products from the food industry and bio-ethanol production,” says Derk van Manen, Chief Corporate Affairs Officer at Duynie since January of this year. Van Manen has been with the company for over thirty years.
GFLI committee member
“Two years ago, the GFLI database did not contain any independent data on moist feedstuffs,” he continues. “We joined GFLI and I took a seat on the GFLI’s Technical Management Committee.” This task has now passed on to Duynie’s Environmental Data Specialist, Elske Dijkstra.
Lower footprint residual flows
Residual flows have a much lower carbon footprint (CFP) than dry feedstuffs, Van Manen explains. “It is therefore in our interest to make reliable data about these products available to the feed sector.” Duynie fulfils a pioneering role in this regard and is acknowledged by GFLI as an expert in moist feedstuffs. Regarding the terminology, he says: “At Duynie we are accustomed to referring to moist livestock feed as co-products, to underline the added value they contain. However, from a sustainability perspective they are referred to as residual flows, or more compactly internationally, as residuals.”
More moist feed data in the database
Van Manen: “Last year we commissioned Blonk Consultants to develop life cycle analysis (LCA) for five of our products: potato peel, pre-fried potato cuttings, raw potato cuttings, brewer’s yeast and pressed potato fibre.” Blonk has additionally developed LCA’s of other moist feedstuffs (pressed pulp, potato juice, corn gluten feed and brewer’s grains), so that the amount of ‘moist data’ in the GFLI database is steadily growing.
Certified data
The data that GFLI receives from industrial parties are certified independently by an external party, and GFLI stringently monitors the quality of the data. The data collected by GFLI are among the data used in the Dutch Kringloopwijzer (environmental database). At the end of last year, Nevedi compiled its own list of livestock feed ingredients and moist feedstuffs. An LCA project was performed to this end, to which Duynie contributed. The data have been submitted to GFLI. “Duynie took the initiative for a number of other products, including potato products,” says Van Manen.
Focus on improving sustainability
Van Manen: “LCAs and CFP calculations in the livestock feed industry and beyond have been accelerated in recent times, partly on account of the EU’s Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive.” For example, retailers are actively engaging with it because they want to share CFP information of products on the supermarket shelf with consumers. It is also relevant for Duynie to inform its customers about the environmental impact of moist livestock feed and the ultimate effect on the CFP per kg of meat or milk. Criteria for the percentage of the outstanding capital that must meet sustainability requirements are also being drafted for financial institutions. That’s why Van Manen provides information to banks about the valorisation of residual flows., on behalf of Duynie.
Sustainable residual flows
“Most moist feedstuffs arrive with a CFP of zero. That’s according to the carbon accounting guidelines, the criterion of economic allocation applies for the livestock feed sector,” Van Manen explains. “Given the relatively low economic value of the residual flow, most of the CO2 is allocated to the main product.” Besides economic allocation, it is possible to base carbon accounting on mass allocation or energy allocation. However, carbon accounting in the livestock feed sector is based on economic allocation, as per agreement.
“It is in our interest to include specific data for our sector, in carbon accounting”, says Chief Corporate Affairs Officer Derk van Manen.
Specific data
To determine the CFP of Duynie’s products, the Scope 1 and 2 emissions are particularly relevant. This pertains to the CO2 emissions relating to transportation, storage and processing. As Van Manen emphasises, “It is in our interest to include specific data for our sector, in carbon accounting. Our products contain a lot of moisture, which means that their volume is large in comparison to their feed value. That is why we want to incorporate our own transportation distances and the type of fuel used by our transportation modes in the calculations. This produces better and more specific outcomes than generic data.” That is why Duynie has acquired the same software used by Blonk. “This enables us to calculate the consequences of decisions made within our company. For instance regarding the processing, the transportation distances, or the type of vehicle we use.” Duynie sees itself as a partner within the whole feed chain, dedicated to helping improve sustainability based on solid data and models. The company is therefore eager to make its own data available to the sector, so that others can make use of them. “We’re fine with the fact that this can benefit our competitors,” Van Manen says in conclusion. “In the end we all stand to gain from improving the sustainability of the agrifood sector.”
GFLI
GFLI collects and manages a database containing carbon footprint data relating to feed raw materials, based on life cycle assessments (LCA). The dataset mainly pertains to dry feedstuffs, but fourages and moist feed data are collected as well.
