Feed buyers across aquaculture, poultry, swine and ruminant markets are navigating the same challenges: volatile input costs, uncertain trade policy and growing scrutiny of what a protein source delivers.
Recently, discussions at USSEC’s annual Soy Connext event in Chicago pointed to several trends now reshaping how the global industry values soybean meal and why consistency and reliability are more important than ever.
Pushing Formulations to the Edge Cost Pressure Is
Across sectors, margins are thin, and every input is under review. Economist Angel Rubio of Expana described the past several years of feed and protein markets as “everything, everywhere, all at once.” He pointed to an unusual pileup of shocks that includes tariffs and shifting trade policy, conflict disrupting the Black Sea and Middle East, drought, a developing El Niño, avian influenza and the new world screwworm. Each one, he explained, ripples down the supply chain from farm to consumer, and they have arrived in rapid succession rather than one at a time. That market pressure lands squarely on the formulation bench.
Building on Rubio’s outlook, Dr. Dominique Bureau of the University of Guelph and Wittaya Aqua noted that when costs climb, nutritionists often walk specifications back “as low as possible.” He noted it is precisely at those tight margins that differences between ingredients become most visible. A single inconsistent batch can undo the gains of a strong one, which is why Bureau favors reliability over the occasional high performer: “better average than good and bad.”
In shrimp feed, that consistency is enforced by biology. Eduardo Coronas Trinler, technical director at BioMar Ecuador, noted that the production cycle runs just 60 days, so “if you change the feed and you reduce the quality for one week, the producer will see it.” Short-term savings, he said, are “not a huge part of this industry.” The real question is, “How quick can we adjust the formulations to have the same animal performance?” Rejecting a bad lot is rarely the lever it appears to be, either. A single vessel can land 18,000 metric tons of soybean meal at an Ecuadorian mill, and if it deviates from quality once it has arrived, “then what do you do?”
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