We often think of corn as a simple commodity, limited to either food or fuel. However, corn can be processed to utilize any or all of its four major components — starch, protein, oil and fiber — in thousands of applications, products and alternative uses.

Corn processing continues to find new ways to benefit consumers around the world and create new markets for producers.

“As corn prices go up, there's more interest in getting more out of it than we used to,” says Larry Johnson, director of the Center for Crops Utilization Research at Iowa State University. Johnson says that while high corn prices have not affected the amount of research being conducted, they have affected the focus. “We believe you can produce both food and fuel from corn, as well as many other things.”

Johnson says that as long as petroleum sells for 15 times the price of corn, it makes sense to develop products that can replace those which are petro-based.

“Even with high corn prices, processing plants can operate profitably,” he says. “Some would argue oil at $140/barrel will support over $9/bu. corn. The price of corn alone is not the issue, it's the relative price of corn to petroleum that drives the processing industry.”

Johnson added that new uses offer producers more marketing opportunities. “Corn producers will always need as many markets as they can for their grain,” he says. “Until 20 years ago they had only food and feed; now there are more options. Today roughly one-third of the corn crop is processed in some way; in 1975 only 12% was processed, and that is a huge growth.”
While processing has grown greatly in past years, Johnson advocates for more research to further the development.

“The corn processing industry must prepare for the future,” Johnson says.

“As the profit margin gets squeezed it becomes more important to be efficient in utilizing the entire product.”

Getting more out of corn is something that is the specialty of NatureWorks LLC. Using biopolymer technology, the company manufactures a resin called Ingeo (polyactide PLA) and Ingeo fibers, which are licensed to other companies that provide consumer goods. Because these products are corn-made, they use up to 68% less fossil-fuel energy than traditional plastics and can break down into compost.

“Consumers are now brutally aware of how oil-based our economy is, not just in terms of what goes into our gas tank, but the products we buy,” says Steve Davies, global marketing director of NatureWorks LLC. “The consumers now get that we need better options. They're driving a huge demand for these products today because they're so much more aware of the impact of what they buy and its influence on the environment.”