Feeding what your food eats

SOLON - 'You are what your animals eat,” was the saying on a bumper sticker that Frank Kuennen saw recently.

'In a lot of ways that's true, and more and more people are getting interested in knowing what goes into the food they eat,” Kuennen said.

He hopes that a growing interest in what our food eats will help him grow his small business at a time when other companies like it are closing their doors.

Since 1978, Kuennen and his wife, Shelley, have owned and operated Solon Feed Mill Inc., which makes animal feed for beef, dairy, swine, poultry and other livestock. Their son, Gregg, is its manager accountant and their daughter, Kylie Mausser, is involved in the retail end.

The company sells its own Acorn II brand of feed products at wholesale and retail and makes private label brands for others.

Each feed product is a combination of grains and protein sources - often with added vitamins and minerals - that is formulated for a specific animal species or need and ground into pellets, meal, or textured feed.

As people become more aware of the connection between animal feed and human food, Kuennen anticipates a growing market for organic and non-GMO (genetically modified organism) feed products.

In 2013, he purchased the feed mill in Fairfax, which had been shuttered for several years. After construction at the facility is finished later this year, he plans to reopen that site and produce organic and non-GMO feed, in addition to conventional products.

Kuennen said the Fairfax facility will cater to small farmers in the surrounding areas whose options for doing business with local feed mills have diminished.

'Every town used to have a little feed mill that was the hub of the town,” he said. 'There used to be five in Cedar Rapids.”

One reason for the decline in independent feed mill operations is vertical integration in the food industry. occurs when industrial meat conglomerates buy up their outside suppliers all the way down the food chain, to the farms that raise the animals and the mills that provide animal feed.

Vertical integration is common in the production of pork and poultry, said Seth Watkins, owner of Pinhook Farms in Clarinda.

'Nobody raises their own anymore,” he said.

Instead, farmers enter into contracts to raise animals owned by a big meat company such as Tyson Foods or Hormel. The animals must be fed to contractual specifications, and the feed often comes from the company's own mills.

'The small guys have a tougher time competing,” Kuennen said, noting that there are far fewer livestock farmers and feed dealers than when he got into the business 37 years ago.

‘Every farmer has a grinder'

Another factor affecting the animal feed industry is an increase in the number of farmers producing their own feed.

It used to be common for farmers to sell their grain and then turn around and buy a commercially processed complete feed product, according to Watkins.

'The processing didn't really add anything to it, and farmers began to realize they could mix the feed themselves,” he said. 'Every farmer has a grinder now.”

Watkins has a cow-calf operation in southwest Iowa where he emphasizes sustainable farming principles and the efficient use of resources. His calves spend at least the first half of their lives grazing on pastureland.

'I like to say all I need is sunshine, grass and water to grow calves,” he said.

When the animals reach a weight of around 600 to 700 pounds, he moves them to a feedlot. There they eat a combination of corn, silage and hay produced on the farm, and distillers grain, an ethanol byproduct, that he buys directly from one of three nearby ethanol plants.

Watkins consults with a nutritionist to get the right combination of fiber, fat, protein and nutrients and sends samples of the feed to a lab for a nutritional analysis.

By paying close attention to both the quality of the feed and the genetics of his herd, Watkins has seen significant improvements in how efficiently his cattle are able to convert food to pounds of weight.

Watkins said he sees feed conversion ratios of less than five pounds of feed per pound of weight, while the national average is over eight pounds of feed.

The lower the feed conversion ratio, the less feed he needs to produce protein.

To get improved performance in their livestock, some farmers augment their food rations with vitamin and trace mineral nutrition supplements. To reach the right balance, they may turn to someone such as Joe Veldhuizen for support.

Veldhuizen is the manager of Newhall Feed Service, a Hubbard Feed dealer that supplies mostly beef, dairy and swine producers. A majority of his customers raise their own grain and roughage, so Veldhuizen focuses on products that balance the animals' homegrown diets.

'I help them get the proper nutritional fortification they need for the best possible performance from their livestock,” he said.

Veldhuizen said he often works with newer customers with less farming experience to develop feed management plans.

Kuennen said his new feed mill in Fairfax will offer a cafeteria-style approach so customers can get feed formulated to their own specifications. Custom orders currently represent about 10 percent of his business, but he believes that percentage will increase as people become more educated about their food.

'Educated people want to know what they're eating and what their food is eating.”