The distillers grains produced by bioethanol plants is as important as the biofuels, the head of Ensus plant has said, noting the potential for output to cut Europe's reliance on high protein feed imports.

Alwyn Hughes, referring to the group's UK plant as a "biorefinery" rather than a biofuels site, said that Europe's demand for high-protein animal feed had been, at 2.6% a year, rising faster than that for energy.

The feed produced as a byproduct of grain refining offered Europe the chance to meet its demand from home-grown sources.

"It has been surprising, that Europe has relied very heavily on protein concentrates coming from outside Europe," Mr Hughes said.

The biofuels industry offered "the opportunity to become self sufficient in concentrates".

GM threat 

The comments come at a time of growing concern over the security of Europe's supplies of protein for animal feed given curbs on genetically modified crops accounting for an increasing proportion of global production.

The EU has historically been the world's biggest buyer of foreign soymeal, with purchases in 2009-10 estimated at some 22m tonnes, more than 40% of world imports.

The distillers grains produced by Ensus's plant, which processes  wheat rather than the corn typical in North American refineries, have a protein content of about 34%, compared with 11% in the raw feed grain.

UK wheat

The Ensus site, which came into operation, will produce 300,000-350,000 tonnes of animal feed, a year besides more than 410m litres of bioethanol and some 300,000 tonnes of carbon dioxide sold to Yara International, the fertilizer group.

It will consume about 1m tonnes of feed wheat a year, of which all supplies so far have been sourced from the UK, Mr Hughes told the International Grains Council's annual conference in London.