Oilseed Processing

Several Commercial Oilseeds are important in Animal Feed Manufacturing because of their nutritional value in terms of

• Protein
• Oil (Energy)

In Animal Feed Manufacturing, Oilseed processing could therefore be processed to produce a wide range of Protein-based and / or Oil-based products.  These may include products such as:

• Full Fat Vegetable Protein Meal
• Partially Defatted Vegetable Protein Meal
• Defatted Vegetable Protein Meal
• Crude Vegetable Oil
• De-gummed Vegetable Oil, etc

Why Oilseed processing?

We process oilseeds for two main reasons:

1. to effectively deal with the potential presence of Anti-Nutritional Factors: The majority of Oilseeds contain various levels of Anti-Nutritional Factors (ANF’s) we need to deal with before animals can utilise the specific oilseed or its products as feed ingredient. These may include ANF’s such as Trypsin & Chemotrypsin Inhibitors; Urease; Gossypol in Cottonseed; Myrosinase in Canola, etc.  The good news is that ANF’s are heat sensitive and that by employing a well designed Thermodynamic Process, we can lower the activity level of ANF’s to safe levels that do not interfere with animal nutrition.

2. to maximise nutritional value : the goal should be to maximise the digestibility of Protein, Fat and Fibre. Only then could animals extract the most nutritional value from the ingredient during digestion.

Typical Protein and Oil content of some Commercial Oilseeds

There is great interest in replacing some or all Animal Protein Meal in compound feeds with Vegetable Protein Meal.  This trend is gaining acceptance in animal feed processing and is fuelled by an increase in consumer health habits.  Soybeans are widely branded as the most important oilseed providing Vegetable Protein and Energy in animal nutrition.

Many other Oilseeds are gaining commercial importance as a result of their Oil Content, making in-roads into mostly Industrial Applications (Biodiesel / Pharmaceutical applications). Jatropha, Shea Nut, Castor, to name but a few.