In addition to beverage spirits and food grade industrial alcohol, MGP produces distillers feed and a certain amount of fuel grade alcohol. Distillers feed is a protein-rich supplement used to satisfy the nutritional requirements of livestock and poultry. Fuel grade alcohol, commonly known as ethanol, serves as a safe, clean-burning additive for reformulated gasoline, helping decrease dependence on non-renewable energy sources while also reducing harmful fuel emissions.

Distillers Feed

When MGP began production in 1941, distillers feeds, both dried and liquid, were established products and the nutritional value of the screened stillage was a recognized fact throughout U.S. agriculture. MGP recognized something else—the value of returning to the farm a much higher percentage of a product that had come from the farm. To MGP and our customers, the value was clear: the more total use of a resource was sound conservation and sound business.

Today, an extraordinary 98.5% of all the raw materials MGP uses is returned in forms that are either different or improved. In the case of dried distillers grains, about one-third the weight of the original grain is returned to the farm, but the product has a feeding value equivalent to the entire amount of grain processed.

The quality of MGP’s feeds suits the need for well-developed, well-balanced rations to supply the vitamins and minerals necessary for profitable weight-grains in livestock. Natural grains alone may not always provide an efficient feed source. In our manufacturing processes, natural grains are fortified during the fermentation process by the addition of yeast and concentrated through distillation and drying. As a result, a much needed, rich feed supplement is developed.

Economically, few, if any, feed supplements can match the contribution distillers feeds make toward satisfying the nutritional requirements of livestock or poultry. Aside from their low cost and high nourishment value, these feeds are extraordinarily versatile.

MGP manufactures a unique product named Midsol. It is a special blend of distillers dried grains with soluble (DDGS). This unusual mixture provides nutritional benefits that are not available in other distillers feeds. Midsol contains 25% protein, 7% fat, 8% fiber and 10% moisture.

In addition to Midsol, we also produce Condensed Distillers Solubles (CDS). This product contains 5% protein, 2.5% fat and 60% moisture. The same grain mixtures for Midsol apply to CDS. It is used in the cattle feeding industry as a direct additive to dry-feed rations for fattening cattle, as well as with blends of other products for range cattle. A highly palatable feed additive, CDS has been shown to produce more pounds of meat, per pound of feed consumed, than rations not containing this product.

Fuel Grade Alcohol

There are many applications for alcohol, but none quite as unique as its use in motor fuel. At MGP, we produce fuel grade alcohol as a co-product of our distillery process. The EPA many years back undertook a program to eliminate the lead content in gasoline. Accordingly, refiners needed a good, environmentally clean octane additive. Fuel grade alcohol certainly fulfilled this need. Today, the fuel ethanol industry has grown and matured to include a Renewable Fuels Standard that mandates the use of clean burning ethanol in the gasoline industry. In 2011, 12.6 billion gallons of corn based ethanol will be blended into gasoline and growing to 15 billion gallons by 2015.