Just like making beer, producing ethanol results in multiple waste streams, one of which is “distillers’ grains.” This by-product started where brewers’ spent grains are today—being given away as a cheap feed, seen as a waste product by the industry. But ethanol producers have rebranded their spent grains as “co-products.” This language has helped the industry market their waste as a valuable feedstuff, and those grains now play a role in the revenue and profitability of ethanol plants, which typically have tight margins. They have become an in-demand livestock feed, and livestock producers have come to rely on them.
The brewing industry should take note of the ethanol industry’s successful marketing of these by-products to livestock producers.