Making A Superior Bypass Protein

MAKING A SUPERIOR BYPASS PROTEIN

BOVETA NUTRITION, LLC

RESEARCH TECHNICAL BULLETIN 21-01

Title:  Production of Boveta bypass protein in a pilot scale manufacturing facility

Summary

The purpose of this trial was to evaluate the bypass protein content of soybean meal and a blend of soybean meal and canola meal when processed using the patent pending Boveta Nutrition processing method.

The results of this study showed that Boveta’s process substantially increased the bypass protein content of soybean meal and combinations of soy meal and canola meal.  The method enabled production of meals having > 75% rumen bypass protein (% of CP).  Furthermore, the processed meals exhibited excellent post-ruminal digestibility of > 80%. 

The bypass amino acid content of meals substantially improved with processing.  Across all essential amino acids, processing resulted in a 2- to 3-fold improvement in bypass amino acid content compared with unprocessed meals.  The process was particularly effective for increasing the amounts of amino acids considered as limiting for growth and milk protein production, notably lysine, methionine, histidine, and arginine. 

The economic potential for Boveta-processed meals to deliver bypass protein and digestible bypass amino acids was compared with a commercially available bypass protein.  The comparison showed that Boveta-processed meals are a more cost-effective source of bypass protein and metabolizable amino acids.  This is explained by the higher protein percentage, the greater % bypass protein, and for certain Boveta-formulated blends, an increased density of essential amino acids.

Boveta’s patent pending process produces a superior bypass protein with higher concentrations of essential amino acids.  It can be used as a stand-alone product for improved production.  It can also be integrated with Boveta’s advanced formulation strategies to fine-tune ruminant diets for even more improved efficiency and cost-effective meat and milk production.

Materials and Methods

A batch processor was used to produce bypass protein using Boveta’s patent-pending methods.  Soybean meal or a blend of soybean meal and canola meal were wetted with varying amounts of water and then heat-treated for specific times.  When meals were wetted, a patent-pending blend of catalytic compounds (BGK Activator) was added to accelerate the reaction process.  After discharge from the processing unit, the hot meals were steeped in steel drums for specific times, with temperatures maintained during steeping. For certain batches, liquid lysine (50% actual lysine), was added at 2% of the total composition. The method of processing resulted in production of approximately 0.20 tons of processed material per batch and multiple formulations were tested.

Samples (~ 1 kg) of processed meals were collected at discharge from the processing unit and after steeping. The processed and unprocessed meals were assayed for bypass protein content (RUP) by in situ methods. The amino acid content of selected samples was measured, and the in vitro intestinal digestibility of these same samples was measured to estimate intestinally available bypass amino acid delivery.  These estimates were compared with native meals and with a competitive bypass product (AGP AminoPlus). Key findings are summarized in this bulletin.

Bypass Protein Content

The data in Table 1 shows that processing substantially increased the bypass protein content of soybean meal and the blend of soybean meal and canola meal.

Table 1.  Bypass protein content and digestibility of bypass protein produced by the Boveta process

Bypass protein content for SBM was > 75% of CP, which is substantially greater than AminoPlus and other commercially available vegetable-based proteins.  Importantly, the digestibility of the bypass was not compromised by processing.  Samples that were assayed by in vitro methods had digestible bypass protein content of > 80%.  The Boveta process achieved both a high bypass protein content and a high digestibility of the bypass protein.

The study tested the feasibility of adding liquid lysine to the processed meal as an approach to increase the bypass lysine content of the meal.  In practice, this could be accomplished via a spray application to meal as it is is continuously discharged from the steeping tank.  The results indicated that such application reduced the measured bypass protein content of the meal from 82% to 74%. However, as will be discussed, the addition of liquid lysine at specific times during the process can increase digestible bypass lysine content of the product, albeit at lower bypass protein content.

An important finding of the study is the clear benefits for steeping of the processed materials.  Holding the processed meal for at least one hour resulted in substantial improvements in bypass content. In practice, steeping vessels are substantially less costly than processing units, so the addition of steeping to the processing schemes is a cost-effective approach that enables a high bypass meal with reasonable capital cost.  Consistent with the results observed for soybean meal, processing the blend showed substantial benefits for RUP content and in particular, the benefits for post-process steeping. 

Amino Acid Concentration of Processed Meal

Tables 2 and 3 show the effects of processing on amino acid concentration of selected samples of materials.  Notably, the addition of liquid lysine (2% wt:wt, 50% active lysine) increased lysine content, as would be expected. 

The concentration of bypass amino acids was substantially improved for processed meals compared with native soybean or canola meals (Table 4). Furthermore, the processed meals exhibited higher concentrations of key essential amino acids compared with AminoPlus.  Notably, the concentrations of lysine, methionine, histidine and arginine were greater for the processed meals compared with AminoPlus. 

Economics of Rumen Bypass Protein and Digestible Amino Acid Delivery

The delivery of digestible bypass amino acids and the potential economic advantages for Boveta’s bypass processing method are presented in Tables 4 and 5.  Table 4 shows that processing improved by at least 2x the grams of digestible bypass amino acids being delivered by the processed meals compared to the native soybean meal or canola meal.  Furthermore, the processed meals were estimated to deliver a greater amount of digestible amino acids per pound compared with AminoPlus. 

Table 5 shows the potential economics for using processed meals to supply essential amino acids. The prices for soybean meal, canola meal, and AminoPlus are representative prices for the upper Midwest U.S. dairy feed market, at the time of this report. For these comparisons, the processed meals were arbitrarily priced at $400/t, which was a $20/t premium to AminoPlus. As might be expected, the processed meals are a substantially superior economic value as sources of digestible bypass essential amino acids compared with the native soybean meal and canola meals.  Processing the meals resulted in roughly a 2-fold reduction in the cost of essential amino acids, with processed meals priced at $400/t. 

In addition, the processed meals were also calculated to be generally more cost-effective than AminoPlus for essential amino acid delivery.  This was especially evident when processed meals had high amounts of RUP, e.g., meal sample 8.  These better cost results held true even with the assumption of pricing the processed meals at a $20/t premium to AminoPlus. 

The results also show that blending and processing meals can optimize the economic advantage.  For example, blending canola meal with soybean meal (sample 20) resulted in favorable economics for histidine and methionine delivery and comparable cost for lysine delivery, even if the blend was priced at the $20/t premium and replaced AminoPlus. These results illustrate the benefits for fine-tuning the process and the selection of input raw materials to deliver an optimized and cost-effective profile of amino acids. 

Technical Bulletin 21-01
Michael J. Cecava, PhD
Director of Research
November 16, 2021

Table 2.  Amino acid concentration of processed oilseed meals

Table 3.  Bypass amino acid concentration of processed oilseed meals

Table 4.  Grams of digestible bypass essential amino acids per pound of processed meals (dry matter basis)