Economic simulation modeling of reprocessing alternatives for corn masa byproducts

摘要

Increasing production of corn masa for tortillas, chips, and related snack foods is resulting in large quantities of organic residuals requiring environmentally sound management. These byproduct streams appear suitable for use as livestock feed material, thus eliminating landfilling costs. Possibilities for developing livestock feed include direct shipping to livestock feeding facilities, blending prior to shipping, extrusion processing, pellet mill processing, and dehydration. To assess the viability of these options for reprocessing masa byproducts as livestock feed materials, an economic model was developed and applied to each of these alternative. Through a series of simulation runs with this model, it was determined that direct shipping was by far the most inexpensive means of recycling masa processing residuals (10-57