Poultry biggest consumer | Global feed mill production approached one billion tonnes, but grew only one percent last year
NEW ORLEANS, La. — Feed mills around the world produced nearly one billion tonnes of product last year, according to a supplement manufacturer.
Alltech uses its sales force of nearly 500 people, who visit feed mills in 129 countries, to estimate global feed production and consumption. Statistics such as these are not available elsewhere.
The company estimates that 28,196 feed mills produced 963 million tonnes valued at $500 billion.
Aidan Connolly, vice-president of corporate accounts with Alltech, cautioned that it is extremely difficult to get reliable data.
For instance, he has heard estimates of feed use in the U.S. aquaculture industry that range from one million to 11 million tonnes.
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He also stressed that the statistics do not include on-farm mixing of feeds.
“In China, the number could be three times as big if we looked at the on-farm number,” he told the recent 2014 Oilseed & Grain Trade conference.
China is the largest producer of feed in the world. Its mills produced an estimated 189 million tonnes of feed last year.
The country’s poultry sector consumed 81 million tonnes of that feed, followed by the hog sector at 73 million tonnes and aquaculture at 23 million tonnes.
The United States came in second at 169 million tonnes, followed by Brazil at 67 million tonnes.
The feed industry tends to grow every year along with the consumption of meat, milk and eggs, but 2013 was a disappointing year for growth.
Feed production was up only one percent compared to a two to three percent increase in previous years because of rising grain prices in 2013.
“That increase in the cost of feed did have an effect on people (who were) looking at other ways to feed animals,” said Connolly.
More animals were fed on the farm or in pastures, and there was an increase in the use of amino acids and enzymes to get more out of feed.
Poultry is the behemoth of the feed industry, consuming 444 million tonnes, or 46 percent of the feed produced by the world’s mills. Broilers ate 272 million tonnes of that, followed by layers at 144 million tonnes.
Connolly said poultry is clean, safe, easy to cook, fits all religious constraints and is cheap compared to other meat.
The hog sector came in a distant second at 243 million tonnes followed by ruminants at 196 million tonnes.
Aquaculture is the fastest growing segment at 40 million tonnes, up 17 percent from 2012.
“You hear some statistics saying that we are consuming more aquaculture now than we are beef as a world population,” said Connolly.
“I have some doubts on how that’s being calculated.”
He suspects shells are included in total shellfish consumption, which is skewing the statistic higher.
The number of feed mills has dropped rapidly because of industry consolidation.
Asia is home to 13,266 mills, or 47 percent of the world total. North America has 5,736 followed by Europe at 4,886.
The largest mills are in the Middle East, where the average mill processes 176,189 tonnes of feed a year compared to the North American average of 36,456 tonnes.
CP Group of Thailand is the world’s largest feed mill with 23.2 million tonnes of production.
Cargill holds the second spot with 15.9 million tonnes followed by New Hope Group of China at 13 million tonnes.
Connolly expects the New Hope Group to soon process 20 million tonnes a year as it buys smaller Chinese mills. The Chinese government is encouraging consolidation because most of the country’s food security incidents have occurred at smaller mills.
“The feed sector has traditionally been dominated by U.S. based companies but will be increasingly in the future dominated by Chinese companies,” he said.
China’s Wen’s Group is No. 7 in the Top 10. It is the second largest pig company in the world, producing more than 10 million hogs a year.
