The concept of using liquid and moist co-products applicable as feed isn’t new. It has been successfully implemented in The Netherlands and the UK, allowing producers to reduce their costs and their carbon footprint by switching off dryers and supplying liquid or moist plant-based residues as feed. Duynie enables this by collecting these co-products on-site ensuring production continuity. Additionally, Duynie creates an infrastructure and organises logistics to enable livestock farmers feeding their ruminants from large tanks.

Circular solution

“In the Netherlands and the UK we established this as a circular solution for all parties involved”, says Neil Woolf, head of procurement at Duynie. “It helps farmers in the transition from compound feed to affordable and circular co-products with a much lower footprint, catering to the likes and needs of their ruminants. And it helps producers of co-products to optimise the financial and ecological use of their residual flows.”

Given this success, Duynie expanded the concept of co-products as liquid feed to Central European markets. Poland was the first market where Duynie introduced this concept creating an infrastructure to enable feeding liquid and moist co-products. It seemed like a clear win-win for all, but it needed some adaptation to make this work in Poland. 

“Liquid is an excellently digestible source of yeast-wheat protein, characterised by high palatability. Thanks to its liquid form it causes better mixing and binding of remaining components. This supports the increase of the uptake of Total Mixed Ration (TMR) by animals.” Dawid Kaczmarek - livestock farmer in Poland

“The storage tanks for liquid feed used in the Netherlands and the UK are too large for use in Poland”, explains Arek Wawryszewicz, managing director Duynie Poland. “Given its size, we needed building permissions for the farms, and the large tanks were subject to additional tax requirements.” 

Bypassing these administrative barriers, Duynie’s solution even created collateral benefits. “We developed smaller tanks made from recycled plastic by local Polish companies and this yields interesting additional benefits”, Arek Wawryszewicz continues. “They cost a fraction of the investment required for the large tanks that are made of fiberglass, and their smaller content connects better with the average truckloads of supply.”

‘Cows love it’

Currently there are some 50 Polish livestock farmers with such a tank for liquid feed. These are larger-scale dairy farmers with at least 100 cows. “We intend to double this to some 100 farmers in Poland, with a target of some 250 to 300 farmers on the longer term”, says Arek Wawryszewicz.

“That would be an ideal number, given the current availability of co-products. This comes from one source – a large producer of starch, sweeteners and ethanol – whose wheat starch is an interesting co-product for feed. Farmers no longer need to add water to dried feed. Cows love the highly palatable protein-rich liquid feed whose supply is available all year round.”

 

"The use of co-products in the feeding of farm animals requires storing the products correctly. Duynie Poland offers me an option to use a small tank quickly and without unwanted red tape within one month from signing the supply agreement.”  Miroslaw Lopaczek - livestock farmer in Poland

 

Increasing supply

According to Arek Wawryszewicz, the current source of supply used in Poland has the potential to double in size. By investing in the smaller tanks and making them available to Polish farmers, Duynie creates an interesting market for additional producers of food, beverages and biofuels to supply their co-products. In Poland and in neighbouring regions in Central and Eastern Europe.

The Duynie managing director in Poland thinks this is an interesting option for suppliers in the Eastern part of Germany, Czechia and Slovakia. “In this region the potential supply of liquid and moist feed from residual flows coming from the food, beverage and biofuel industry is significant”, Arek Wawryszewicz says.

“It can be increased tenfold at minimum! This is also a very interesting concept for the Southern European region where water shortages can be mitigated by using these liquid and moist feed components.”