Historically, moisture management technology was a simple concept. A typical moisture management product would have surfactants and organic acids, with little innovation and development in this area. Devenish Nutrition Limited in partnership with Perstorp Animal Nutrition developed the applications for propionic acid esterified to glycerol technology to create a new generation moisture management product called SmartMoisture®.
SmartMoisture® Product Manager
Devenish Nutrition
Grain will lose or gain moisture depending on the environment it finds itself in. This is known as equilibrium moisture content (EMC). EMC, as well as feed milling processing, has an impact on the moisture levels of raw materials used by feed mills during storage and feed production.
Globally, between 1-3% of animal feed is lost during the milling process, which equates to approximately 30 million tonnes of feed wasted each year. Optimising moisture content in feed is key to ensuring safe, consistent, high-quality animal feed. Water or moisture, whether natural or added into feed, is an important feed ingredient. It is part of the nutritional specification and should be utilised by the nutritionist to create a balanced feed. Sufficient moisture in mash feeds improves steam uptake in the conditioner which leads to better particle adhesion, heat transfer, starch gelatinisation and, ultimately, better pellet quality.
It is, however, important to ensure moisture is bound to feed particles and not free to create an environment where microbes can flourish.
SOLUTIONS FOR MOISTURE MANAGEMENT
Historically, moisture management technology was a simple concept. A typical moisture management product would have surfactants and organic acids, with little innovation and development in this area.
The surfactant had the role of breaking water tension and allowing water droplets to spread across the feed to get more contact with feed particles, while the propionic acid inhibits moulds and yeast.
Perstorp Animal Nutrition were the first to introduce esters of organic acids for mould inhibition in grains, feed and feed raw materials. These molecules were so new that they were the first to assess them in any agricultural process.
The covalent bond of the propionic acid esterified to glycerol proved to be more stable and less corrosive than the salts of propionic acids. As a mould inhibitor, these products offer longer retention of propionic acids in feedstuffs.
Devenish Nutrition Limited in partnership with Perstorp Animal Nutrition developed the applications for propionic acid esterified to glycerol technology to create a new generation moisture management product called SmartMoisture®.
Glycerol esters of propionic acid therefore help as stabilizers, keeping volatile propionic acid in the feed for longer periods. Meanwhile, surfactants reduce water tension, allowing moisture to spread more evenly across the feed particles. This combination helps to improve moisture content, enhance pellet quality, and inhibit the growth of molds and yeast, ultimately ensuring the production of safe and high-quality animal feed.
Water activity is a clear indication of how well moisture is absorbed and how much space is left to absorb moisture.
If a product can reduce the water activity in feed, it would mean that the moisture has been absorbed effectively. Water activity results should be considered when looking into the direction in which a moisture management program should go.
The combination of the glycerol esters of propionic acid and surfactants demonstrated its efficacy to reduce water activity. When moisture levels increase, water activity will increase. Contrary to this, where moisture was added in a SmartMoisture® solution, the water activity was reduced.
In graph 1 below, the striped bars represent the control samples and the solid bars represent feed that received 1%, 2% and 3% SmartMoisture®/water solution addition.
With the addition of moisture, SmartMoisture® has had a noticeable effect on reducing water activity.
IMPROVING STARCH GELATINISATION WITH SMARTMOISTURE®
Devenish’s reputation has been built on providing nutritional support to our customers. It is important to ensure the added moisture does not affect the nutritional value of the feed. With this in mind, improving starch gelatinisation and its impact on diets has been a focus for us in compound and extruded feed.
In a recent trial, we assessed the impact of adding either 1% moisture (control) or 1% SmartMoisture® to a feed with 47% starch content. Starch gelatinisation was measured using a Differential Scanning Calorimeter. As shown in graph 2 and 3, SmartMoisture® delivered improvements in both the percentage of gelatinised starch in feed and the gelatinisation rate of starch.
Graph 3. Gelatinisation rate of starch
In improving starch gelatinisation, we are able to:
• Improve pellet quality (PDI)
• Reduce fines/dustiness of feed
• Increase glucose absorption in the small intestine
MAXIMISING ENERGY SAVINGS AND INCREASING THROUGHPUT
Glycerol esters of propionic acid and surfactants have given consistent results in terms of reducing energy usage and/or increasing the throughput as you can see from graph 4 and 5 below. In doing so, operational costs are reduced, improving the profitability of the mills implementing SmartMoisture®.
SERVICE LEVEL APPROACH
Supplying moisture management solutions is not a drop and go product. This product needs to be supported by various specialists to ensure maximum benefit. A variety of conditioning, pelleting and cooling setting needs to be considered and adjusted to ensure optimal milling efficiencies.
Devenish offers feed milling support through various feed milling specialists within our team across the globe.
CONCLUSION
Moisture management has become an important part of every feed mill strategy in reducing cost by managing losses and driving more sustainable factories. Our results to date show that improvements can be made across numerous parameters with on-going research continuing to deliver further performance benefits.
About Janus Fouche
Janus Fouche graduated from university (RAU) in 2004. He spent 6 years auditing and validating programs on feed milling efficiencies and moisture management across Southern Africa. In 2012, Janus took a role as African Sales Manager focusing on feed additives and during this time he served on AFMA’s (Animal Feed Milling Association) technical committee. Janus joined Devenish Nutrition Ltd in 2018 as the Regional Manager for Sub-Sahara Africa. He launched SmartMoisture® with Devenish as the Global Product Manager in 2019 implementing Moisture Management programs at large feed milling companies across the globe.
