US Grains Council to work with Japan on DDGS registration

A technical team from Japan is visiting the US to assess the reformulated DDGS and coordinate with the registration effort.

“Japan is our top international partner,” said Tommy Hamamoto, USGC’s Country Director in Japan. “Last year, in terms of U.S. exports, Japan was number one for corn and number six for DDGS. We have excellent relationships with MAFF, and we are looking forward to working closely with them to make sure re-registration proceeds smoothly.”

All feed ingredients used in Japan must be registered with MAFF and appropriately labelled for nutritional content. The existing DDGS registration includes a tolerance level to accommodate routine, naturally occurring variations in the products. The recent trend by ethanol plants to extract commercially valuable oils from DDGS, however, is yielding a product with significantly lower oil/fat content that is likely to exceed existing tolerance levels. This requires that reduced oil/fat DDGS be tested and re-registered as a new product.

The Council is in the process of contracting for feeding trials and analytical testing to meet MAFF’s registration requirements. 

“If all goes smoothly, and we expect that it will, we will accomplish the re-registration this year without any disruptions to this valuable trading relationship,” Hamamoto said.