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NCGA names 2021 action committee leaders

The National Corn Growers Association has announced the incoming farmer volunteers appointed to its 2021 action teams. The NCGA’s Ethanol Action Team will include Mark Recker, chair; J.R. Roesner, vice chair; and Gary Porter, board liaison. Its Market Development Action Team will include Robert Hemesath, chair; Troy Schneider, vice chair; and Tom Haag, board liaison. And its Production Technology Access Action Team will include Kate Danner, chair; Patty Mann, vice chair; and Dennis Maple, board liaison.

These and other NCGA action teams and committees will have

their first set of meetings in St. Louis in January. A full list of the organization’s groups and members can be found online at www.ncga.com/ about-ncga/our-team/teamsand-committees.

Minnesota biofuels council recommends LCFS

The Minnesota Governor’s Council on Biofuels has published its consensus report on steps needed to grow Minnesota’s biofuels industry, including the swift creation of a Low Carbon Fuel Standard.

In early 2020, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz charged the 15-member council to recommend policies to accelerate achievement of the state’s biofuels and greenhouse gas reduction goals. The council, with support from the Minnesota Department of Agriculture, recommended accelerating the state’s move toward E15; adopting an LCFS; increasing biofuels use in the state fleet; increasing

public understanding and marketing of biofuels; and developing advanced biofuels.

Minnesota adopted a statutory goal in 2007 to replace 30 percent of the state’s petroleum use with biofuels by 2025. The state is currently not on track to meet that target.

Pacific Ethanol moves away from fuel ethanol

Pacific Ethanol Inc. is continuing its planned transition out of fuel ethanol production and into specialty alcohols and specialty ingredients. The company intends to sell or repurpose three of its idled West Coast ethanol plants and change its corporate name.

Husky Energy Inc.’s two Canadian ethanol plants will soon be under new ownership following the company’s planned merger with Cenovus Energy Inc.

In late October, Cenovus and Husky announced a transaction to create a new integrated Canadian oil and natural gas

Mike Kandris, CEO of Pacific Ethanol, said the company will continue to participate in the fuel ethanol market, but not as a primary focus. The company began transitioning away from fuel ethanol earlier this year and has now shifted 50 percent of its online capacity to specialty alcohols, company. The company will operate as Cenovus and remain headquartered in Calgary, Alberta. The companies said they have entered into a definitive arrangement under which Cenovus and Husky will combine in an allstock transaction valued at $23.6 billion (CAN), inclusive of debt. which made up 45 percent of its revenues during the first nine months of 2020.

Pacific Ethanol idled its ethanol plants in Idaho and California during the pandemic, keeping production online in Oregon

Husky ethanol plants included in Canadian merger

and Illinois. The deal is expected to close in early 2021.

The transaction will include Husky’s two ethanol plants, located in Lloydminster, Saskatchewan, and Minnedosa, Manitoba. Each facility has an annual production capacity of 34 MMgy.

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PICKING UP VOLUME: The total production volume of Fluid Quip Technologies' trademarked Still Pro 50, pictured here, will soon grow to over 600,000 metric tons. PHOTO: FLUID QUIP TECHNOLOGIES

SECURITY OF SCALE

As one of America’s largest biorefiners moves forward with two more installations of Fluid Quip Technologies’ 50% protein technology, critical production redundancy is in hand. By Tom Bryan

This fall, when Green Plains Inc. announced plans for a third installation of Fluid Quip Technologies’ patented Maximized Stillage Co-Products technology—while its second installation was just breaking ground—other U.S. producers with the same systems took the news well.

It seems counterintuitive that ethanol plants already possessing MSC technology would welcome more of the trademarked product it yields—Still Pro 50—into the marketplace, but scale matters in the feed business and volume can be a rising tide that lifts all boats.

“It’s about resiliency,” says Keith Jakel, sales and marketing manager at FQT. “Having multiple plants producing the same product provides a secure supply for end users. With the MSC protein system, end users are assured of a consistent product; regardless of whether the product comes from one plant or several, you’re assured of a reliable, consistent supply. Redundancy brings confidence and confidence brings product value.”

Jakel says the new volume of MSC 50% protein product, including what Green Plains will produce when all three of its MSC facilities are online, will boost total North American production from 350,000 metric tons (mt) per year to more than 600,000 mt annually (Green Plains alone will produce 200,000 mt).

FQT nutritionist Pete Williams explains. “For whatever reason, if product isn’t available from one source—say, production falls down at a location—we can get the identical product somewhere else. It’s all about having resilience in the supply chain, and we absolutely have that now,” he says, pointing out that six MSC systems are in operation and three are under construction. “In this industry, you need to be able to supply a minimum of 100,000 tons of material annually before you get what we call ‘bin space,’ and a lot of new technologies simply can’t reach that level. We’re there, and it’s exciting.”

‘Plan B’ Pledges

While even greater volume will be needed to achieve marketplace resiliency on a global scale, the larger MSC adopters like Green Plains believe Still Pro 50—a unique brand of what the feed industry defines as “corn fermentation protein”—is already achieving volumes it can sell around. On a recent FQT webinar, Walter Cronin, Green Plains’ chief commercial officer, agreed that industry nutritionists need a sound guarantee of scale and supply redundancy. “We need to be able to say that, if we have interruptions— a weather event or whatever—that we have a plan B,” he said. “That gives the nutritionist confidence to consider the product, and then ultimately start including it in their ration.”

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As Green Plains completes its second installation of MSC at its Wood River, Nebraska, biorefinery—with its first installation online in Shenandoah, Iowa, and its third breaking ground in Obion, Tennessee—the company will achieve solid internal redundancy, but Cronin said wider industry adoption of MSC is needed to reach even broader product dependability. Ultimately, Cronin said, more plants coming online with MSC technology, both its own facilities and others, should push demand higher—not lower. “It should drive greater demand,” he said, stressing that Green Plains is not concerned about overproduction.

Cronin said Green Plains welcomes industry nutritionists, and even executives from other biorefineries, to tour its Shenandoah MSC building, along with the company’s colocated subsidiary, Optimal Aquafeed. “It’s a fascinating world—true biotech—that we are endeavoring to harness there, along with our enzymes and yeast partner Novozymes. We are adapting new enzymatic processes to achieve higher and higher protein levels.”

Still Pro 50 is currently achieving 50% to 53% protein and at times being benchmarked alongside 48% soy products. Williams says it probably shouldn’t be. “We’ve got more protein than soy—it’s a great base protein—we don’t have the anti-nutritional factors of soy, and we also have yeast in the product, so we should be looking at a significant premium over the current soybean meal price, which is currently $350 to $400 per ton, or about three times the value of DDGS.”

J-Curve Values

Green Plains has lofty value ambitions for its ultra-high protein feed ingredient. The company is in pursuit of what it calls the “J-curve of protein opportunity.” Cronin said Green Plains wants to not only achieve redundancy with its high-protein products, but create multiple versions of the feed at different protein levels and price points: 53% protein at about $500 per mt; 56% protein at approximately $800 per mt; and, potentially, 60% protein at an even higher price. “We think we can do this in conjunction with other corn biorefiners,” he said. “If you want to come up to these values with us, we are glad to bring you along.”

Green Plains’ interest in taking other producers under its MSC wing sits well with FQT, which introduced the platform to the industry over a decade ago. On the webinar with Cronin, Michael Franko, FQT partner and vice president of business development, reflected on the early days of MSC’s development when large companies like Tyson Foods expressed interest in MSC 50% protein, but had concerns about its volume. “They said, ‘Call us when you have six plants running,’” Franko said. “There was that barrier to entry. They weren’t going to make bin space until we had true redundancy.”

Neal Jakel, partner, strategy and technology at FQT, agreed that the single-source facility days were challenging. “Our first MSCproducing installation was 10 years ago, and it took five years to get the second plant going,” he said. “It was a slog to get into certain markets, and we were priced substantially below soybean meal for a time, until we achieved that redundancy. Now, with plants in three different states—soon to be more—and two different countries, things are different.”

Joe Ward, FQT senior nutritionist, says he understands why buyers would be cautious about supply disruptions. “It’s the worst thing in the world if you adopt a new product and start using it in your operation widely, and all of a sudden it isn’t available,” he says. “That’s a disaster, not only to the formulator, but also down the line, because performance values can be changed, and that will make a producer reluctant to come back to the product when it’s available.”

But Ward stresses that volume is only part of the supply resiliency story. “Beyond scale, your product has to be repeatable and uniform—you need consistency—not only within a plant but between plants,” he says. “So, if you end up with one plant that’s not able to produce, or runs short of material, there will be another plant that has a virtually identical product that can be supplied.”

In addition to the challenge of scale, FQT and its MSC marketing partners, which include Flint Hills Resources and Green Plains,

STEPPING UP: As Green Plains Inc. breaks ground on its second Maximized Stillage Co-Products technology installation, and preapres for a third, it is already producing 50,000 metric tons per year of MSC 50% protein in Shenandoah, Iowa. PHOTO: FLUID QUIP TECHNOLOGIES

are making nutritionist outreach a top priority. Cronin said Green Plains is intent on reshaping how feed nutritionists view its ultra-high protein product. He explained on the webinar that it’s more than just saying a product is 50% protein and different, it’s showing customers that downstream considerations are being taken to manufacture, store and ship the product. “The focal point of a dry mill was to produce 2.6 gallons of ethanol and, later, we evolved to 2.9 gallons. But DDGS was an afterthought, and that cannot be the future,” he says. “We have to convince nutritionists that what we have now is a product that is not DDGS, but something completely different.”

DDGS Improved

Williams agrees with the need for strong coproduct delineation, but says it’s important to differentiate high-protein from DDGS without downplaying the latter coproduct’s role. “We understand that DDGS is a valuable product in the marketplace and we’re not trying to replace it,” he says. “Rather, we’re adding value to the marketplace. What we are doing is not going to remove or downgrade the value of DDGS.”

In fact, Keith Jakel says FQT research shows that post-MSC DDGS is enhanced compared to DDGS from non-MSC facilities. He says the MSC process effectively lowers the amount of variability in the residual DDGS and leaves it nutritionally better off. “We have done the studies and have the proof on this,” he says. “Most plants are running at 110% to 130% of their dryer design rate— cranking the heat up to run harder and faster—which essentially denatures the DDGS. When we take that load off the dryers, they can run the way they’re supposed to, which produces a residual DDGS with a lighter color, and protein that isn’t denatured. So you end up with better protein and amino acid profiles than if you wouldn’t have taken any protein material off at all. We believe you will begin to see producers selling their residual DDGS at higher values.”

Jakel says the MSC process diverts about 30% of the coproduct volume to the highprotein stream, leaving 70% as reconstituted DDGS. “One of the very first questions producers ask is, ‘What will it do to my DDGS, because I don’t want to lose that value?’” Jakel says. “They want to be certain that if we’re taking something out, the remaining product still has equal or improved value.”

To demonstrate the retention of DDGS value, FQT collects a DDGS sample weekly for 12 months before an MSC technology installation, and again after startup. This gives

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OPTIMIZED OUTFLOW: Important storage and loadout considerations are taken at each MSC technology installation, such as utilizing high-quality reclaim silos designed for efficient product flow and first-in-first-out material distribution. PHOTO: FLUID QUIP TECHNOLOGIES

the plant data they can use to show their current and future customers of DDGS what their product looked like before and after MSC installation. “What we’re seeing is, first, greater consistency in the DDGS product,” Jakel says. “That’s big because, remember, the greatest detractor of value is fluctuating product consistency.”

Functional Factors

In addition to differentiating highprotein coproducts from DDGS, Neal Jakel says it is equally important to FQT to distinguish other 50% protein feeds from Still Pro 50. “There’s a common misunderstanding that all of these products are similar, but that’s a fallacy and couldn’t be further from the truth,” he says. “There’s a difference between the 50% proteins being produced by chemical extraction versus mechanical extraction, and there are even clear differences between the technologies using mechanical separation. For example, some prefermentation systems have larger fiber particles, which can limit the type of species the feed is suitable for.”

Ward adds that FQT’s technology is a “true mechanical separation” that doesn’t rely on chemicals or flocculating agents to separate out protein. “That’s critical because flocculants and additives can change the digestibility, and value, of the end product,” he says, explaining that flocculants have a nitrogen composition that, when added to a feed product, appear to boost crude protein value but, in reality, do not improve amino acid availability in the feed. “So those two numbers become very distant,” he says. “You could have 50% crude protein, but 2%, 4%, or more, could be registering as protein from the nitrogen coming off the flocculant, which has no value to swine and other monogastric animals. You have to really understand what kind of protein you’re getting.”

And because FQT’s process captures the yeast produced during the ethanol fermentation process, it has enhanced functionality. Nutritionists refer to this type of benefit as an associative effect of a feed ingredient. With soybean meal, for example, there are known antinutritional factors that limit the value and performance of soy protein. “The associative effects of the MSC product in a formulation doesn’t have those anti-nutritional factors,” Ward says. “Oppositely, it has desirable functional characteristics from the yeast component that boosts value and performance across species.”

The beneficial effects of Still Pro 50, Neal Jakel says, has been validated in robust feeding trials—the company has done more than 30 of them with various institutional partners—which takes the

guesswork out of determining the product’s nutritional profile and value. “In the end, that really matters to ethanol producers installing these technologies because they are counting on an ROI that is based on those values.”

Readable Dossier

Every feeding trial FQT does is documented in what Williams describes as an abridged translation of the work. “We have easy-to-understand summaries of every feeding trial we have done, all compiled into a dossier,” he says. “So, if someone in Asia calls up and says, ‘Pete, can you send me the details of your Atlantic salmon trial, your shrimp trial and your tilapia trial?’ I can say, ‘Yep, I’ll get it right off to you.’ The information is there. It’s readable and we’re happy to share it with our customers and partners.”

Williams says ethanol plant decision makers can read the Still Pro 50 dossier, and if their nutritionist wants to take a deeper dive into the nutritional data, FQT will supply them with the detailed findings. “This gives us a level of credibility in the industry that is really quite unique,” he says.

Continually sharing information about Still Pro 50 is important because, a decade into MSC’s development, FQT is still making discoveries about both the process and the product. “We’ve amassed a great deal of knowledge, but as we move forward, it’s clear that we will continue to make more nuanced discoveries about the product and its full potential,” Ward says.

Williams shares an example from a recent feed trial. “We replaced soybean meal in a broiler diet—with a specification to achieve optimum performance for broilers—and achieved better performance than anyone predicted, with a 10% inclusion of Still Pro 50,” he says, explaining that two growing days were eliminated to achieve broiler slaughter weight, potentially allowing the customer to produce eight flocks a year rather than seven. “That’s just one current example of the sort of thing we’re discovering this product can achieve.”

Keith Jakel shares another example. “One of the very first plants making Still Pro 50 was selling the product to an egg layer as a protein supplement,” he says. “It turns out, the egg layer had to stop using the protein because their chickens had increased the size of the eggs they were laying and they were off-spec for the contract they were trying to honor. So, that sort of situation, for example, tees up a feeding trial that looks at a laying hen—with the objective of examining egg size—which is important to an egg cracker that might just need volume and not size. Those are the things that become learning opportunities for everyone. You only get these types of insights through time and a focused approach in bringing a product to market.”

FQT’s commitment to chronicling its feed trials and R&D is somewhat unexpected of an ethanol plant technology provider, but Jakel says it’s a strategy the company has always embraced. “From the beginning, we made a decision to take a different approach to how we brought our technology and products to the market,” he says. “If you look back at the ethanol industry, the industry was almost giving DDGS away at times, so we have been a part of a paradigm shift. We said, from the start, ‘We’re going to bring a technology to the industry that is going to create an additional coproduct, but we’re also going to help create and develop the market for that product.”

Jakel shares a story about an ethanol client hamstrung by dryer capacity issues and stuck overproducing wet distillers grains. “We started talking about our technology and how it could give them various streams and choices—fiber, protein and residual DDGS,” he says. “And as we sat in their boardroom discussing all the possibilities, it was a like a giant light bulb lit up over the entire room when they realized, for the first time, they could control things,” he says. “If they could control the amount of wet feed they made—because of that freed up dryer space—DDGS, protein, oil and ethanol, they could remove themselves from the commodity rollercoaster and become more of a price giver than a price taker. That’s what this technology does. It’s a game-changing technology for the ethanol industry. It’s a paradigm shift. It puts control and power back into a producer’s hands and lets them decide what markets they’re going to target, what they are going to produce, and ultimately what end result they want to deliver to their shareholders.”

Author: Tom Bryan Ethanol Producer Magazine 701.738.4916 tbryan@bbiinternational.com

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OPPORTUNITY AROUND THE GLOBE Many of the key players in ethanol’s export markets will hold their places into 2021, but policies, tariffs and demand for industrial ethanol could make some waves. By Lisa Gibson

As of August this year, the U.S. had exported more than 905 million gallons of ethanol, a figure a bit higher than many experts expected for the year, says Craig Willis, senior vice president of global markets for Growth Energy. Despite tariffs, COVID-19 and other barriers blocking global markets, Willis expects exports this year to exceed 1.3 billion gallons, inching toward 2019’s total of 1.472 billion.

“Frankly, this year is coming in better than a lot of people thought,” Willis says.

Much of the balance over COVID-19 demand reduction is owed to an increase in industrial ethanol demand, he says. “It hasn’t been a one-for-one offset at all, but industrial demand has helped us out considerably.” Mexico, South Korea and India all have been strong markets on the industrial side. “While it’s not fully offsetting reduced fuel demand out there, it definitely has helped out and given us stronger numbers than maybe some anticipated.”

Total year-over-year gasoline demand reduction for 2020 is estimated to end up between 9% and 12%, while 2021 will see an

improvement to only 1% to 3%, Willis cites. “So we should see an increase next year, just because people are hopefully going to drive more as we get past this COVID environment that we’re in.”

COVID isn’t the only culprit. Tariffs and policy issues—such as those in Brazil and China—stood in the way of meaningful export increases to those markets in 2020, and likely will continue to keep U.S. ethanol exports from reaching their full potential next year.

“We need to make sure ethanol is treated as an energy product, from a tariff standpoint,” says Brian Healy, director of global ethanol market development for the U.S. Grains Council. “This continues to be an issue that’s going to impact fuel ethanol exports over the next five years. … The tariffs do not reflect the energy solution that ethanol is in these markets. We need to work on this disparity from a tariff-level standpoint.”

As countries like Canada, China, Mexico and Brazil evaluate their carbon-reduction policies and goals, ethanol needs to be at the table, Healy says. “Ethanol needs to continue to be elevated in climate discussions and environmental discussions. We cannot let ethanol get behind or excluded in these discussions. It’s got to have a prominent role as a solution to reduce GHG emission in the transport sector.

“Frankly, that’s the direction the world is headed in. We need to make sure we’re not left out of it.”

And looking ahead, several key markets show promise.

CANADA

Canada finished out the 2019-’20 marketing year as the No. 1 export market for U.S. ethanol, at 321 million gallons, according to the USDA. “It’s been consistent for the last 10 years or so, so expect that market to be an opportunity for both Canadian and U.S. producers, and an expansion in 2021 timeframe as federal and provincial policies are developed there,” Healy says.

Canada is the “steady Eddy,” Willis says. The country is rewriting its Clean Fuel Standard and Ontario has implemented an E10 standard. “[The Clean Fuel Standard] is in a draft phase, but in some of the models they have out there, they have E15 there by 2030, so we’re watching very closely what’s going on in Canada.”

BRAZIL

Brazil’s tariff rate quota bumped the country to No. 2 in U.S. exports for marketing year 2019-’20, giving Canada the top spot. Exports to Brazil reached 263 million gallons. “It will certainly be incumbent upon the current administration to deal with the TRQ (tariff rate quota) issue there,” Healy says. “Until that is resolved, it’s unclear how much further our exports will slide going into that market.”

The TRQ was given a 90-day extension, moving its expiration to Dec. 14. Brazil exported 314 million gallons to the U.S.

last year with virtually no tariffs, Willis says. “What we’re asking for there is a level playing field.”

Exports to Brazil were down by 30% compared to the previous year, Willis says. “There were some impacts of decreases in demand related to gas declines related to COVID, but trade policy issues there certainly were problematic.”

The country’s InnovaBio low-carbon fuel policy should add more than 4 billion gallons of ethanol demand by 2030, and sugar prices are starting to rally, which decreases feedstock for domestic ethanol.

“We’ll continue to watch Brazil extremely closely,” Willis says.

INDIA

“India currently is our third-largest export market,” Healy says, adding that’s largely a result of industrial exports increasing during the COVID-19 crisis. The U.S. exported 194 million gallons of ethanol to India in marketing year 2019-’20, according to the USDA.

“They’ve actually been one of the few that’s grown in spite of COVID,” Willis says. “A lot of our markets have gone south in demand, but we’ve actually gone up year over year in India.”

While the market has primarily been industrial use, Healy says work is ongoing to help India meet its 10% fuel blend rate goal with exports from the U.S. The country does not have enough domestic supply, he says. “We’re looking at a mini trade deal being discussed in that market.”

UK

“The U.K. is another important market,” Healy says. “We exported 105 million liters over last marketing year.” But the U.K. will be fully Brexited Jan. 1 and is discussing an E10 mandate, up from E5. “Our hope is that will bring back some U.K.-based domestic production online,” Healy says.

A trade agreement with the U.S. would help lower access barriers currently diminishing potential in the European Union, Healy adds. MEXICO

“This market really popped up this year because of an uptick in industrial demand for hand sanitizer,” Healy says. “We’ve been working in that market for a number of years, demonstrating the economic opportunity for expanding markets.”

Mexico holds 1.2 billion gallons of fuel ethanol demand potential, Willis says. A recent Turner Mason study showed ethanol could have saved consumers 62 cents per gallon last year, he says.

“We spend a lot of time on advocacy and telling our story, and Mexico is a great example where ethanol can save consumers a significant amount of money,” Willis says.

CHINA

While China’s tariffs have essentially blocked U.S. exports since 2018, the country remains an opportunity. The 45% tariffs make economics unfavorable now, but the country has provincial-level policies that require ethanol both from domestic producers and exports. “That is still an opportunity, as long as tariffs are reduced,” Healy says.

It’s the second-largest gasoline consumer in the world and would move the bottom line for the U.S. ethanol industry faster than any other export market, Willis says. “China could be the quickest mover, so we’re always watching that very closely and doing any advocacy we can there. We’re at the mercy of the Chinese government with that tariff.”

Author: Lisa Gibson Editor, Ethanol Producer Magazine 701.738.4920 lgibson@bbiinternational.com

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VIRTUAL VIDEO: Bart Nichols, KCoe People talent advisor, and Danielle McCormick, KCoe Isom principal, meet virtually for a company video. Companies are training and connecting virtually during the pandemic. PHOTO: KCOE ISOM

Safe and Connected The biggest morale boosters have taken a direct hit this year, but ethanol plants and other industry organizations are evolving to keep spirits as high as possible. By Lisa Gibson

The best workplace cultures are the ones where people feel safe and connected, says Bart Nichols, talent advisor for KCoe People. Both of those are challenging with a COVID-19 pandemic limiting human contact. Still, ethanol plants have stepped up and overhauled morale strategies to keep employees as safe and connected as possible.

“I think the morale is good, from what I’ve seen,” Nichols says. “People are being resilient and figuring out what they can draw upon to get through this period of change, and businesses continue to look at how to run in this time period—what changes are affecting them. I think ethanol is the same way and I think they’ve done a good job of keeping things going as well as being in touch with employees.”

A few strategies to keep employees safe and connected have been successful in this incredibly challenging year. Open Communication

“Obviously, dealing with the biggest collapse in our market that we’ve ever experienced in the industry was difficult to say the least,” says Dan Sanders, vice president of Front Range Energy in Windsor, Colorado. “I think a lot of companies did a lot of unique things as far as employees go, to make sure that communication is open, that benefits are provided, that flexibility is provided.”

Back in March, Front Range included

IN ISOLATION: Managers at Front Range Energy (pictured) also have emphasized one-on-one communication with employees during the pandemic, to help relieve individual anxiety as lifestyles change with social distancing. PHOTO: FRONT RANGE ENERGY

all employees in the process of developing COVID-19 safety protocols. “This new pandemic and creating new policies around sanitation and quarantining and all this stuff was brand new to us, and so we were just very open with our employees,” Sanders says. “We held employee meetings with the entire employee base to communicate our production plans, our new sanitation protocols, new visitor protocols, etc. We were just very open with communication.”

Those new safety protocols include limited visitors, reduced staffing in some areas of the plant, mask mandates, daily health checks and routine sanitation rounds, specifically at shift exchange. “We developed a multipage COVID policy that no ethanol plant thought they’d ever have to do, but we did it,” Sanders says.

Employees, of course, leave work and interact with other people off site, but Front Range has done everything it can to help protect employees while they’re at work, Sanders says. “Having them involved in that process of developing those processes was beneficial to us.” Feedback from employees on the new safety strategies has been positive. “We haven’t come across any real critic of what we’ve implemented. Everyone had their own opinions and we tried to boil it all down to best practices, not just in the industry, but from CDC guidance and other recommendations to come up with the best policies we thought we could put in place to protect our employees.

“Everyone is concerned about the future,” Sanders adds. “So we held those

CONNECTED CULTURE: Front Range Energy in Windsor, Colorado, (pictured) implemented new COVID-19 safety protocols with input from all employees. PHOTO: FRONT RANGE ENERGY

open-forum meetings with our employee base to just let them know what we’re faced with and how we’ll handle getting through it. And we will get through it and do our best to keep everyone employed, and give flexibility to deal with schools shutting down and kids at home.”

Open communication between management and employees also has been crucial to stave off the spread of rumors, Sanders says. “Rumors are not good for morale. As much as management can lead by example and get in front of any sort of issue that might come up, I think it’s beneficial. I also think that having that open door policy where an employee can feel comfortable talking to a direct supervisor or even the general manager of a facility to deal with a personal issue … from our experience, that’s really worked well for us.”

Personalized Communication

Wade Rummel, technical services manager for Lallemand Biofuels & Distilled Spirits, agrees with that personalized strategy. “It’s more important than ever to know your employees personally,” he says. Some ethanol plant managers are reporting no anxiety among staff, but on-site, Rummel sees a different picture. Employees might not report feeling anxiety, but might show

LOOKING UP: Front Range Energy (pictured) has been able to keep employee morale as high as possible in challenging times, says Dan Sanders, the plant’s vice president. PHOTO: FRONT RANGE ENERGY

it on the job in their attitude, work performance and level of focus. A manager who knows his or her employees can read them better, he says.

“Make that conscious effort to continue to get to know your employees better,” Rummel says. “By knowing that person a little more on an individual level, you will be able to do more things for that person to help bring morale up.”

Individual flexibility is crucial, Rummel and Sanders agree. With more demands in their personal lives, employees might need help with their schedules to make room for their children’s virtual learning, a spouse’s changed schedule, or any number of issues that have come up during the past year’s pandemic.

“We directed our management team to deal with each employee on a case-by-case basis, obviously in confidence,” Sanders says. “And we encouraged employees to go to their direct manager and deal with those issues as they come up, whether it’s a family issue or a fear or anxiety. We’ll work with them on a case-by-case basis and provide the flexibility we could to give that employee some comfort in dealing with this crisis.”

Nichols emphasizes spending just 10 minutes per day with an employee on some aspect of training or coaching adds up to 40 hours per year. “So in as little as 10 minutes a day, you can have a big impact on morale.”

Morale is bound to slip a bit under the pressure of the current circumstances, but Sanders says these measures have helped. “I think we did a good job keeping it as high as we could. At the end of the day, everyone is facing great uncertainty with the economy, with schools, their own health, family members’ health and friends’ health. I think we did the best we could.”

Rummel suggests boosting morale by continuing to celebrate milestones—years of employment, gallons produced, etc.—in a safe way. “Have a little more fun,” he says, adding managers should spend more time in the plant, talking with employees.

LBDS has opened communication, he adds, holding frequent virtual meetings and virtual happy hours every Friday. “It’s more of a social means for employees to connect again.

“Go out of your way to have those video calls or safe gatherings,” he says.

Evolving Strategies

For businesses in the ethanol industry that can operate virtually, strategies have evolved, Nichols says. The training he provides has changed to tweak or completely cut hands-on, group-based learning exercises. But group discussions can take place in Zoom breakout rooms, and the Zoom whiteboard and polling functions have proven useful for interactive learning, he says.

“Nobody wants to hear an old guy like me go on for three hours,” Nichols says, adding that learning should be experiential—listening, talking and formulating ideas. “They should feel like, ‘I got something; I’m empowered by my organization to do this.’ Those are the kinds of things that keep morale going in uncertain times.

“We’re retooling everything that the firm delivers to our people next year to be virtual because we don’t have the certainty and we need to keep training in place because training does build that morale.”

At the start of the pandemic, training calls slowed for KCoe, Nichols says. But by mid-summer, businesses had started embracing virtual training.

Slow Recovery

“The industry is slowly recovering, like the rest of the economy, with fuel demand coming back,” Sanders says. “I think plants are, for the most part, back up and operating, at some capacity, which is always good for morale.”

The pandemic and its fallout have 100% changed how staff is managed in a plant, Rummel says.

Again, Nichols emphasizes that the best cultures are ones where people feel safe and connected. “And if you set that foundation of a good culture, it also goes into the interpersonal relationships where trust can be established or enhanced. And not just from an operational aspect … If those things are in place, they feel safe and connected. It deepens the relational aspect of trust. People appear more sincere. People appear more attune to what you’re thinking.

“Culture and trust are big morale boosters.”

Author: Lisa Gibson Editor, Ethanol Producer Magazine 701.738.4920 lgibson@bbiinternational.com