One Great Ingredient Allows Formulations With Other, Cheaper Ingredients: Can This Save Me Money?
Did you know that you get insight into someone’s psyche when they select ingredients and use them to formulate diets. No, really, you do.
I’ve written about how easy it is to fall into the trap of the “cheap enough to feed” mindset. It’s simple: cheapen up the major input costs (ingredients) as much as possible to save money! In this case, what animals get fed, how the diet is formulated and how performance is affected does not matter. What they fail to see is cheaper ingredients often have hidden costs – reduced performance, more days on feed, and so on.
I suppose this says something about time preference. Are you interested in keeping money now by purchasing cheaper ingredients? Or would you rather spend more now to get a rocket fuel-type diet that will offer fewer surprises and should result in better performance (i.e., get meat, milk, and eggs more reliably or quicker)?
The good and bad thing about this real-world issue is that while it’s not always straight forward, it’s worth performing the analysis because the right combination of ingredients can help maintain or bolster performance, while allowing the use of cheaper ingredients to reduce overall diet costs.
Let me explain; one great ingredient, such as high-shear dry extruded full-fat soy meal or dry extruded/partially-deoiled (ExPress®) soy meal, can serve as the foundation of a formulation. With highly-digestible amino acids and ample energy for growth, in part due to the process, and in part because it’s nutrient-rich soy, high-shear dry extruded soy meals fit into most formulations and can command a premium over commodity, hexane-extracted soybean meal.
The premium, anywhere from $30-60/ton over commodity soybean meal, arises from the fact that either of these high-quality ingredients will make it easier to satisfy nutrient requirements (i.e., meeting a certain energy level, lysine level, and so on), thereby making room for inexpensive ingredients to fill and complete the diet. 4-8% savings on the complete diet cost can be achieved.
So, speak with us about how high-shear dry extruded soy meals can be used to lower overall diet costs. Every case is unique, but you’ll be glad you did the analysis when you save money while maintaining or even increasing performance due to taking the long-term view!
