The plant will be used to produce WDL’s animal nutrition products: ProTyton™, a sustainable premium protein for aquaculture and MiruTyton™, a naturally produced butyrate feed-additive.
White Dog Labs announced today that the district court for Morrison county, MN, has approved its bid to acquire the Central Minnesota Renewables (CMR) plant in Little Falls, MN. The plant, originally a 20mgy ethanol plant, was upgraded in 2016 to produce butanol and has several of the unique production capabilities required to produce ProTyton.
“We are happy to announce this agreement and will work with local and state authorities to reopen the plant as quickly as possible,” said WDL’s CEO, Bryan Tracy.
Cargill and WDL have recently announced an off-take agreement for ProTyton, an alternative protein to fishmeal which is a critical feed ingredient in aquaculture. ProTyton, made up of 80% protein, is sustainable and scalable as it is made from corn, but is also affordable as it shares production costs with its co-product, MiruTyton. MiruTyton, a butyrate-rich fermentation-soluble, has been shown to substantially reduces prevalence of Salmonella and Campylobacter in challenged broilers, in addition to improving Feed Conversion Ratio and weight gain. WDL is currently negotiating a MiruTyton offtake with a major feed-additive company.
While WDL has developed and scaled up the anaerobic fermentation process for these products, its plant operation will be supported by the management of Midwest Renewable Energy (MRE).
“We have been collaborating with WDL for the past two years and are excited to support the conversion and ramp-up of their first plant,” said Jim Jandrain, MRE’s Chairman of the Board. “We are impressed with the simple ProTyton process and are looking forward for MRE to become the second ProTyton plant.”
The CMR plant has a CleanSugar™ production module made by FQPT. Membrane filtration will be provided by Graver Technologies, and the reengineering of the plant for ProTyton is being carried out by AdvanceBio.
“We are looking forward to working with our customers, partners and the authorities, to rehire most of the plant employees and start production,” said Tracy. “We hope to profitably do our part in sustainably enhancing and improving the world’s food supply.”
