Food and feed additives: Feedstocks

How maize, soy and palm oil become food additives

What this tab covers What it is made from and what it feeds: the raw materials and energy per tonne with their share of cost (linked to the commodity table), who is low-cost and why, and the chemicals made from it.

Most of the family is made from farm commodities: maize and cassava starch and glucose, soybean and palm oil, sugar, seaweed and citrus peel. Petrochemicals feed methionine, benzoates, sorbates and synthetic vitamins. Feedstock prices pass through to commodity additives (starch, lecithin, lysine) within months; specialty additives are less exposed.

Inputs per tonne

Input	Quantity per tonne	Role	Share of cost	Source
Mz Maize	roughly 2 t glucose per t lysine (indicative)	starches, sweeteners and fermentation sugar	the main cost for lysine and starch (indicative)	maize tile; indicative
Soy Soybeans	lecithin about 1-3% of crude soybean oil (indicative)	emulsifiers	not published	soybeans tile
PO Palm oil	not published	mono- and diglycerides and other emulsifiers	not published	palm oil tile
Su Sugar	not published	fermentation feedstock and sucralose base	not published	indicative
Gas Natural gas	not published	acrolein, HCN and methyl mercaptan for methionine	not published	indicative

Who is low-cost, and why

Chinese fermentation plants with cheap maize and coal power are lowest cost for lysine and threonine; US Corn Belt mills for starch and sweeteners; integrated European and Chinese methionine plants with captive HCN and acrolein. Specialty enzymes and cultures compete on strain technology, not feedstock.

Raw materials on the commodity table

Mz Maize Soy Soybeans

What it is made into

Product	Note
Lys Amino acids (lysine, methionine)	feed amino acids are a sub-family
Vit Vitamins	feed and food vitamins
Enz Industrial enzymes	food and feed enzymes
Cit Citric acid	acidulant and preservative
Str Starch and cellulose derivatives	modified starches and sweeteners