Waterford-based Specialist Nutrition has secured a five-year deal worth €135m to supply by-products from a US ethanol plant as sustainable feed to farmers in New York.

Part of the Arvum Group, Specialist Nutrition is a leading international expert in turning co-products produced by the distilling, brewing and biofuel industries into sustainable animal feed.

The deal with Attis Industries sees the company establish a US base in Syracuse, New York, to market and distribute 500,000 tonnes of feed annually into the state’s dairy farming sector from a nearby corn ethanol plant in Fulton.

Attis sees the agreement to market the wet cake and syrup co-product streams into speciality feed applications as the first step in transforming the Fulton facility into the world’s premier GreenTech campus.

Tracing its origins back to 1859, the Arvum Group comprises a number of agri businesses, renowned for innovation in seed and animal feed.

Its co-product business, developed through working with some of the industry’s biggest names, is highly sustainable for manufacturers as it removes the costly drying at the end of the distilling process and reduces the carbon footprint.

Arvum Group CEO Roy Power spoke to WLR's Eimear McKeown about the deal.