Excellence in Fractionation...Kernel by Kernel

Mr. R. James Giguere invented the corn dry-fractionation technology CPT employs in its milling process. He continues to hold the original patents for his innovation. A chemical engineer, Mr. Giguere’s career spans more than fifty years in wet and dry corn milling for food and industrial markets and in ethanol processing. Although retired, Mr. Giguere remains active in the industry. His process and design innovations continue to advance corn dry-milling technologies.

Four corn milling and processing plants use the Giguere technology licensed to CPT for the ethanol industry. They include the world’s largest corn dry mill, Valero’s ethanol plant in Jefferson, Wisconsin. Valero’s  dry-fractionation mill processes nearly 50 million bushels of corn annually for its 130-million-gallon ethanol plant.

This ethanol plant chose CPT technology because of its proven ability to effectively separate each of the corn kernel’s key constituents: endosperm, germ and bran. CPT’s fractionation system delivers a stream of approximately 260,000 pounds of Degermed Debranned Corn (DDC) an hour, which has significantly improved processing at the ethanol plant. At the same time, dry fractionation has enabled the Valero plant to capture significantly higher value from the corn it buys for its ethanol plant’s feedstock. Germ finds markets in the human food and animal feeds markets. Bran, or fiber, also has a place in feed, thermal energy and consumer energy markets. And the Valero plant has trademarked its higher-quality and higher-protein “Renew Meal™.”

The Giguere technology has been used for more than twenty-eight years to produce ingredients for the beverage, alcohol and snack foods industries and industrial muds for the oil-drilling industry.

The dry-milling technique Mr. Giguere invented requires less equipment, substantially reduced horsepower at significantly lower operating costs.