charging for spent grain

[lhall]

We give all of our spent grain away to two different farmers, who come and get it twice a week. One of the farmers was telling me how lucky he was to be getting the spent grain , that he was the only farmer in his county that still had hay in the barn and wasn't having to buy it from Oklahoma (we had a bad drought this year in TN). Up until now I've been glad to just get rid of the spent grain, and wasn't thinking of trying to recoup some of our costs in buying the grain. But with our grain prices skyrocking up, I'm considering charging the farmers to get the spent grain. Is anyone else doing this, and how much are you charging?

[pbutlert]

We don't charge for spent grain, but we do occasionally get free pork, turkeys, or whatever the grain has been feeding................ :)

[GlacierBrewing]

We don't charge for the farmer/rancher to take the grain. We also receive garden veggies, organic goat milk, occasional pork cuts. Maybe this is a Montana thing.....

[Moonlight]

If you charge for spent grain, the farmer may not feel as obliged to pick it up when you most prefer. Having spent grain around for a few extra days might be enough to convince you what a service he is doing for you.

[ECB]

Don't charge him for all the reasons everyone has mentioned, but insist he put your bumper siticker on all of his trucks!

Tom
ECBC

[Jephro]

Tho only brewery i know of that sells it is AB in St. Louis. They dry it, load it on rail cars and sell as feed. As mentioned, your farmer keeps you from having wet grain around for days attracting flies and driving off customers. If you could dry it, and sit on it, it could be profitable, but i like the bumper sticker idea.

[wayne]

you will rue the day you asked for money for what is to you a pile of crap!

[bbrodka]

The farmer is really doing you a service, imagine if they didn't want it and you had to pay to get rid of it :(

Count your blessings that he comes when you need him and recoup your costs with price increases of your product

[lhall]

OK, not a very popular suggestion. Just asking. I know that larger brewers do sell their grain, and was wondering if any of us smaller brewers do.

[beauxman]

A brewery I used to work at did sell the grain. They bought a big dump truck and delivered it to the farmer. I think the only reason they were able to charge for it was it saved the farmer from having to come get it. I am sure it was a break even kind of situation and not a real revenue stream for the brewery. Best to not tick off your farmer, they are getting harder to find!

-Beaux

[GlacierBrewing]

On the front range of Colorado there used to be a company called something like "ProGrain". They would pay to have grain removal equipment installed in breweries with the understanding that they get all the spent grain. Went quite well for awhile.

[JoeV]

I searched high and low for farmers willing to take our grain... no takers. I even contacted my state dairy farmer group. It appears its too heavy and with fuel cost rising I couldn't find anyone intereseted. So now I have to haul it myself and pay for disposal (as compost). I did get one person interested in having me deliver it to his methane digester. So if any brewer in Seattle reads this and knows a farmer who picks up let me know.

[liammckenna]

I've had various farmers bring their produce in exchange.

I had a beef farmer give us a hip of beef for our annual friends and family bbq. Had a pig from another.
Farm fresh eggs are a big bonus too.

No cash changes hands. I'm always very happy to see it go. I can't imagine how much it would cost if I had to pay someone to take it away.

[Gaelicbrew]

I've heard that the big breweries are charging €40.00 / tonne for their wet spent grains. We weighed up the idea but decided against because the farmer who collects it is very reliable and flexible about when he collects etc.

The only way I can see to charge for it is by increasing demand through advertising etc. I've got the nutritional data

Dry Matter: 24.4 - 30%
Digestible protein: 13.9 - 21.3%
Lipid: 6.6 - 10.0%
Starch: 11.6%

5 Units of wet grains is roughly equivalent to one unit of barley so maybe look for 1/5th the cost of feed barley. The question you have to answer is whether recouping this relatively small amount of cash (especially if you have to advertise) is worth risking an important waste disposal service..?

[bigdogbrewer]

Unfortunately, for brewers and farmers, times have changed...

Hay prices are running about $4.25 a bale for Timothy in the Mid-Atlantic states. Most hay farmers in my area (Maryland) will only get 1 cutting this season due to the lack of rain. There is also very little pasture grass for the cows to eat.

Therefore, hay supplies are down, demand is up, and thus prices are up.
Also, other feed prices are up as well...sound familiar.

I have given away my spent grain for my entire brewing career until...yesterday.

I started looking putting feelers out to farmers in purchasing my spent grain about two months ago when malt prices were forcasted to be much higher for 2008.

I wasn't trying to make any money on the spent grain, just offset my increase grain costs a little.

I am fortunate to be in an area where there are lots of farmers and I found one who was willing to pay 1 cent/pound for spent grain to feed his goats. He picks up 1 time per week to minimize his fuel costs. He told me it's a great deal for him. I have other farmers now interrested due to the short supply of hay for the winter.

We live in a market economy. A farmer reduced his feed cost, I reduced my grain costs and we're both happy about the arrangement.

[Kevin Watson]

I agree, you can't charge for spent grain pickup unless you are delivering it yourself. In many cases, you need the farmer more than the farmer needs you. I actually worked for a place that had to pay the farmer to come pick up spent grains.

[oppigards]

We have 4 ss 7 bbl tuns which we transport to the farmer. I do not charge him but he has offered me pork for christmas. But I think that it can be a price on spent grain in the near future. There will be a market for bio gas and I think that in the end it will be a price for the spent grain.

Cheers
Bjorn

[bigdogbrewer]

I spoke with a Maryland farmer today who regularly purchases large quantities of spent grains who said that the current market/wholesale price for Brewers Spent Grains or Distillers spent grains is $150/ton dried and delivered by the container.

[mr.jay]

I too have wrestled with this question. I have a very unreliable farmer, which has led to a very stinky, fly infested compound, an angry boss, and a sore back from me having to hump it off to some distant location.
I put an ad in my local Pennysaver, and advertised:

ATTN: CATTLE FARMERS
SPENT GRAIN AVAILABLE
PRICE NEGOTIABLE
U-LOAD, U-HAUL

I expected no response. 2 farmers called me. I was in negotiations with one of them. I told the farmer I use (politely) that I was going to have to "fire" him, because he doesn't come when I call, and that my boss was making me charge for the grain (way to pass the buck, eh?). Wouldn't you know it, he winds up agreeing to pay 5 bucks a load, and hasn't missed a pick-up since! I almost feel bad asking for money, but I think asking somebody to pay for something attaches a sense of value to it. Besides, unless your farmer fell off the turnip truck, he knows what's up with the projected prices of grain.

[NYSBrewer]

Times are tough for farmers. The one I use works very hard for very little. I give THEM money to pick up our grain. 20$ per trip should at least cover their fuel, they are about 30 miles away. It also makes them very reliable. Its tough and dirty work to pick up grain, so its nice to give them a little something for their efforts.

[Straub]

There have been many threads on this subject but as with anything else in business its LOCATION! LOCATION! LOCATION!

We have a rotation of about 15 farmers who get our grain. They pay about $0.40/bushel. We put out a little over 90 bushels for a brew and every day about 5 or 6 of the farmers will come and take an average of 15-20 bushels each. They shovel the grain themselves and they never complain.

They are actually lined up right on schedule each morning as the grain comes out of the brewhouse. They want to be the first to fill up their truck. We could charge much more and there is a waiting list to get in the rotation of farmers.

If you live in Portland or Seattle, you're probably going to have to pay to dispose of it. If you live in rural PA or similar areas, you might have a situation like we have.

You have to feel out the market. There is no one right answer.

[lhall]

This has turned into an interesting discussion. Our farmer is extremely reliable, he drops an empty trailer and hauls away a full one twice a week. The farmer pays a workhand to drive about 75 miles roundtrip to come and get it. BUT it is definitely worth his while. This season he was the only farmer around him that did not have to BUY hay for his cattle. In fact, he has begun marketing his calves as "brewery mash fed" and got a higher price for them when he sold them on an online auction. He does give us the occasional steak and hamburger, and we are very happy with his service.

However, I'm looking at malt prices increasing 30-70% this year depending on the maltster. I don't think we will be able to pass all of that cost increase on to the final customer, or if it even wise to do so. Is is fair to ask the final consumer to pay more, and for us to get an even smaller margin on the beer we sell, if there is another way to wring some value out of what we make?

[beauxman]

This could easily turn into a new thread, actually I think there is one on this subject of price increases. My thought is yes, you do pass this on to the consumer. It happens all the time in almost every other industry. It is also a good time to look at operations and find ways to be even more efficient without cutting quality or character of beer. With this in mind, finding new revenue streams is also a good way to offset this. I guess if you can get away with charging for your grain, go for it. Only you know if your local market of farmers will bear it.

-Beaux

[MikeJordan]

All of the mid-size to large breweries in Portand sell there grain to the same local farmer. The farmer has been in the "business" for awhile and sometimes turns around and sells grain to other farmers. It's a business for him and it's treated like one, including contracts. My understanding is there are other farmers scratching the surface willing to buy spent grains as well. The service isn't 100% reliable but reliable enough to rarely cause production delays. My suggestion...if you're brewing more than 10,000 bbls and have consistent production you should be selling your spent grain unless you like "leaving money in your spent grains".

[Michael Murphy]

Our farmer (the most dependable) quit on us this summer leaving us with a stinky fly shithole... in the end we have got him back by paying per "box" I use 2 per batch they hold around 600kg each... I use about 20 boxes per week....

unless you have a shit load of spent malt your bound for trouble trying to sell it. Industrial breweries which use 9000 kg per batch 8 times per day sell it and this usually works out to pay the brewers.