U.S. Grains and BioProducts Council officials traveled to India last week to meet with aquaculture producers about using American corn co-products in shrimp feed.
Carlos F. Suárez, the council’s director of global sustainability, joined the organization’s South Asia team to promote distiller’s dried grains with solubles to seven companies across India. The meetings focused on positioning the sustainability attributes of U.S.-origin products. India is the world’s second-largest shrimp exporter.
“The Indian aquaculture industry is facing the same challenges we are seeing across other regions like Southeast Asia and the Americas, in terms of needing to provide sustainability assurances for plant-based ingredients, in line with the different standards that determine market access into lucrative markets such as the European Union,” Suárez said.
The council team shared information about how U.S. DDGS provide nutritional advantages in shrimp diets and can reduce environmental impacts of feed manufacturing and aquaculture operations.
Suárez presented the council’s Sustainable Grain Exports platform and related protocols, explaining how they help importers and end-users make their products more competitive in mature markets. Several companies registered with the platform following the meetings.
The companies expressed interest in U.S. DDGS because of consistent quality, competitive pricing and sustainability records created by the Corn Sustainability Assurance Protocol that can provide required documentation at no extra cost.
“Increasing the council’s technical and commercial footprint in the Indian aquaculture sector is an important step in increasing demand for U.S. corn co-products in the near future,” said Arup Mitra, deputy regional director for South Asia.
Mitra said the meetings help identify domestic partners and end-users for future conferences and networking events.
Suárez was joined by Mitra, regional consultant Amit Sachdev and program manager Monika Madan for the meetings.
