Date: 1981-07-24
Speaker: HOWARD MARXS (republican)
Chamber: S

c/o Senator CHARLEs H. PERcy. Washington. D.C. DEAR a. MARSs: in response to Richard Archers suggestion and your request for more Information. I will attempt to explain as much as I can about our process and background using industrial food processing waste products In the manufacture of ethanol. Chuckle Candy Co.. a division of Nabisco Confections. Inc.. produces 30 million pounds of jelly candy per year. This jelly candy includes jelly beans. Chuckles. Easter eggs. JuJus. orange slices. etc. Recognizing the potential alcohol avaiable In the form of industrial food processing wastes. we solicited and obtained a longterm purchase agreement with Nabisco to remove the candy and starch wastes from their Chuckles plant on a daily basis. From October 1980 to March 1081. these food processing wastes were used In combination w~th corn In recipe concentrations of 10 percent. and 20 percent. and 30 percent. In midMarch of this year. we began using 100 percent waste products from Chuckles in our process. There were. many contributing factors Involved In making this decision. 1 *111 adirat there were many. many problems In the beginning. However. at this time yields of .511 pounds of alcohol per one pound of sugar are being obtained. This yield compares favorably with the starch- conversion yield ratio of .568 pounds alcohol per one pound starch. Using food processing waste products has many benefits which are not at first apparent. Actual test data is not available at this time. but we estimate 1.250.000 BTUs are saved per day In the cooking process alone when using sugar. This Is an annual savings of over 35.000 pounds of Illinois stoker coal. Because onehalf of the. raw material used In our process Is sugar (jelly candies). which require no enzymes in order to process. we. are realizing a substantial savings In the cost of enzymes. This savings alone totals another $20 per day. one other area. and perhaps the most important. Is the increased use of backset (recycled) process water. The jelly candy and starch wastes do not contain the salts that have a tendency to buill& up. in the process water when usingL Corn. We are also seeing better alcohol yields as a result of this. WhyI dif.t know. Because the starch we receive from Chuckles is a "confectionery starch" (purchased from A. E. Stalev. Co.. In Decatur. Illinois) the grind is so fine we do not have a byproduct available for feed. Basically. everything Is converted to alcohol. We currently have this waste product under contract to purchase at a cost of $40 per ton. Compare this price to the cost of corn at $120 per ton. realizing a ton of corn will only contain about 1300 pounds of starch. Hence. compare the cost of corn at 12 cents per pound for the available starch to the waste starch cost of 2 cents per pound. As you can see. the use of food processing waste products has greatly reduced our raw materials cost. The cost of raw materials is the single largeat percentage of cost In producing power alcohol. On a normal production day. we currently process 5000 pounds of jelly candies and 5000 vounds of confectionary corn starch. On the average. we are receiving about 30o0 pounds of waste from Chuckles daily. Tis waste Is approximately 50 percent pure confectionary corn starchand 50 percent jelly candies. We have been able to maintain production only because we had over 200.000 pounds of jelly candy on hand before we developed a suc.cessful recipe. Current negotiations are underway with other local food processing industries to obtain additional waste products for us In our process. Our daily production goal (700 gallons of 100 proof ethanol) cannot be maintained when using 100 percent sugars and confectionary corn starch. howvever. Current production Is about 600 gallons per day. The one problem we have now Is raw material handling. Our plant was not originally designed to handle waste food products. When a uroduct has a combination of more than one ingredient. the handling of that product becomes Increasingly more diffcult. Another benefit of using food processink. wastes In the process is the absence of fusel oils normally present when corn is cooked end fermented. The absence of these fusel oils make the resulting alcohol better suited for Industrial uses. We have limited resources and therefore. major advances in the use of waste products is taking lonver than I would likce. If more emphasis could be put on developing this part of the industry. greater prozreSs qnd savings could he realized by the ethanol industry In general. If need be. we would be more than happy to review our Weant and process with you In greater detail. However. I believe this sh~ould give you a good idea of what changes were req~uired in order to use the food processing wastes. Again. thank you. Sincerely.