No Antibiotic Residues Detected in DDGS

US - Phibro's Ethanol Performance Group has reported no detection of virginiamycin residues in more than 40 samples of distillers' grains (DDGS).
calendar icon 24 July 2009
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Phibro Animal Health Corporation (PAHC) has announced that its Ethanol Performance Group has not detected virginiamycin in distillers' grain. Virginiamycin is the active ingredient in Lactrol®, the company's market leading antimicrobial for ethanol production. PAHC just concluded testing over 40 samples, which included wet and dry distillers' grain and distillers' grain with syrup. Samples were taken from 11 facilities and testing was conducted by an outside laboratory and by Phibro's technical service laboratory in St Paul, Minnesota. These results are consistent with testing PAHC previously conducted in 2005 and 2007.

No residues were detected in each of the 42 samples of distillers' grain, using the only validated test method accepted by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for use in virginiamycin feed assays. This method will be part of PAHC's food additive petition to be submitted to the FDA's Center for Veterinary Medicine (CVM) in September 2009 for its Lactrol antimicrobial. Lactrol® is a market leading infection management tool used for decades by the fuel ethanol industry and to date is the only antimicrobial product ever to be reviewed by the CVM for use in ethanol production. Results continue to demonstrate that Lactrol, when used as indicated, allows ethanol producers to produce the most alcohol from the least amount of corn.

Antimicrobials are a widely used and critical tool for infection management in ethanol production. While technical advances continue in manufacturing design and operation, bacteria are still present during fermentation and prevent optimal yields of ethanol. The ethanol industry has recognised that through the use of small amounts of antimicrobials such as Lactrol, the United States annually gains an extra 1.5 billion gallons of ethanol from the corn feedstock currently used by the industry. Said another way, the judicious use of antimicrobials eliminates the need to cultivate an additional 3.2 million acres to produce an extra 500 million bushels of corn. The ethanol community, through its actions, continues to demonstrate the critical need for this important fermentation aid in ethanol plants.

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