Archer Daniels Midland (ADM) will manufacture an estimated 30,000 metric tons of premix products per year at the Nanjing facility. Such premixes, it said, typically contain vitamins and minerals, amino acids such as lysine and threonine, and other ingredients.
The company said the new plant will complement its existing premix capacity at two facilities in northern China - it owns premix production facilities in Tianjin and in Dalian.
A fourth premix plant is currently under construction in Zhangzhou - it is set to come on stream in the first quarter of 2016.
The US group said meat consumption in that Asian market is expected to rise at a pace similar to the trend over the past decade, coupled with a greater shift away from ‘backyard’ feed production.
“As China continues transitioning from a manufacturing-driven economy to a consumption-based economy, its middle class will continue to expand, and meat consumption will continue to grow,” ADM CEO Juan Luciano.
He said ADM was extremely confident that demand for the livestock feeds and feed ingredients it produces will continue to increase over the course of the next decade.
China meat consumption trends
The US Department of Agriculture (USDA), in a 2014 outlook, projected a hike in pork, poultry, and beef output to 90m metric tons (mt) in China by 2024 - an increase of about 30% on 2014 rates.
“Around three kg of feed are needed to produce each kg of meat, so feeding a large and increasing population of animals will be a growing challenge. Growth in feed consumption has accelerated recently, and as China’s livestock farms transition to a more concentrated mode of operations that use commercial feeds more intensively, USDA projections expects this faster pace to continue,” said the report.
The USDA also said China’s combined use of corn and soy meal for animal feed is set to rise from 200 mmt to over 300m mt in the next ten years: “Chinese animals also consume a variety of other grains, protein meals, bran, and hulls from grains, and growing use of these commodities is expected to support the expansion of meat output."
ADM began operations in China in the mid-1990s, when the company acquired an animal feed premix plant in Dalian, in the country’s northeast. The company also supplies feedstuffs through its network of sales offices located throughout the Asia-Pacific region.