Milling & Baking News - April 20, 2021 - 31

Ingredient Market Trends
Renewable diesel fuel revitalizes
food vs. fuel debate

he rapidly expanding renewable diesel industry has posed a
challenge to traditional biodiesel
manufacturers and over time may divert increased volumes of soybean oil
and other feedstocks into fuel as opposed to food production. That prospect encouraged analysts to suggest we
may be on the cusp of a revitalized fuel
versus food debate as crops grown for
feed and food increasingly become key
components in manufacturing fuel to
power the economy.
The Energy Information AdministraIndexes
tion (EIA) said renewable diesel fuel,
sometimes called green diesel, is a bioShortbread Cookie Ingredients
fuel that is chemically the same as petroleum diesel fuel. It may be used in existing petroleum pipelines, storage tanks
and diesel engines.
It can be produced
from cellulosic biomass materials such
as crop residues,
wood and sawdust
and
switchgrass,
and it qualifies as
Pasta Ingredients
an advanced biofuel
under the Renewable Fuel Standard
Program. Currently,
soybean oil is a principal feedstock in the
manufacture of renewable diesel fuel.
The EIA said because renewable diesel is chemically the same as petroleum
diesel, it may be used in its pure form or
mixed/blended with petroleum diesel
similar to biodiesel blending.
Price Indicators
With soybean oil prices, and the
2
3
prices of other feed stocks, so high, sevTHIS LAST WEEKS WEEKS
eral standalone biodiesel manufacturing
WEEK WEEK AGO AGO
plants have closed.
Pan-bread flour
The new and state-of-the-art renewWheat futures,
able diesel plants are much larger in
KC, May
comparison with the standalone bioHard winter
diesel manufacturers and better able
premiums,
to endure and even prosper amid high
12.2% protein
commodity prices.
Millfeed, KC,
Brian Harris, executive director and
30-day
owner, Global Risk Management, said,
Soybean oil
" The renewable process is more efCane sugar
ficient/profitable than a standalone
Cocoa
biodiesel producer mostly through its
31 / November/7,world-grain.com
2017
Milling
bakingbusiness.com
& Baking News

ability to gain higher state subsidies
(carbon credits). The process has less
constraints on blend levels, no cold
flow issues and is being built out in
large capacity. The credits are over and
above those available to the methyl-ester-based biodiesel. "
Mr. Harris added, " The option to
load 'once-refined' oil into a tank car
and shipping it to one of the facilities
(renewable biodiesel plants) as opposed to maintaining full RBD (refined,
bleached and deodorized) packaging
lines and those associated costs are top
of mind...As the renewable diesel capacity buildout continues against the
backdrop of a 'Green Administration,'
we view this as nothing less than the

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Weekly Spotlight

'new normal' going forward as the cost
structure to food distribution is now being reevaluated at all levels. "
Heretofore, government reporting
failed to indicate the extent of the growth
and production of renewable diesel energy. This was beginning to change.
The EIA on March 25 said it would
report renewable diesel production and
biodiesel production together.
The US Department of Agriculture
in response said beginning in the May
World Agricultural Supply and Demand Estimates report, " biofuel " will
replace " biodiesel " in the soybean oil
section and will include renewable
diesel production. Renewable diesel
production in the April and previous
WASDE reports was buried in the Food,
Feed & other Industrial category. MBN
bakingbusiness.com
/ world-grain.com
Milling & Baking
News
April 20,
2021 / 31

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Milling & Baking News - April 20, 2021

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