The U.S. Grains Council has officially changed its name to the U.S. Grains & BioProducts Council. U.S. Grains & BioProducts Council President and CEO Ryan LeGrand said the name change completed a two-year process.
“We hired a market research firm and discussed in-depth with our board, with stakeholders, and with our full staff. We’ve been promoting distillers’ grains to overseas markets for 20 years. We have been promoting and developing markets for ethanol for 10 to 11 years in overseas markets. So, those two products have been part of our identity and practice, but not in name, and so we thought it was time to fully incorporate every product within our portfolio into our name and create a name that will carry us well into the future, as we continue to evolve, maintain relevance with the times, and to carry out that mission of developing markets, enabling trade, and improving lives.”
Not only is this the right time for a name change, but LeGrand also said it was overdue.
“We didn’t want to do anything hastily. We wanted to make sure that this was right for us, and so we did that, and probably could have done it several years ago. As our chairman, Mark Wilson, we have an annual theme for our chairman each year. ‘The Time is Now’ is his theme. Mainly, we reached out to the corn states and the sorghum checkoff. These are our major, major funders. We also talked with our ethanol partners. We’ve got some huge support coming from the ethanol industry – Growth Energy, Renewable Fuels Association – so you know, they were involved in the talks as well, and we wanted to make sure it was right for everyone.”
The name change is timed well because of the potential new applications for biofuels coming online.
“SAF is on the horizon. Let’s hope it can become a reality one day. Hopefully, when it does, we’ll be prepared for it with this name, ‘BioProducts,’ which incorporates everything coming out of ethanol plants today and hopefully well into the future. Another one is sustainable marine fuel. That’s starting to pop up on a lot of radars. Ethanol can really contribute to cleaning up the fuel, cleaning up the emissions coming from these ocean-going vessels, and we’re hoping to play a role in that. So, ‘BioProducts,’ our name would be inclusive of sustainable marine fuel as well.”
The organization has a track record of adapting to new opportunities.
“I think it has. In 1960, we started out at the U.S. Feed Grains Council. By the time 1998 rolled around, when we changed to the U.S. Grains Council, we were doing much more than just feed grains. At that time, this organization didn’t see the ethanol boom that was coming a few short years later, which would lead us into the DDGS promotion that we’ve been doing for two decades now. We didn’t see the ethanol coming that we’ve been doing for over a decade now. So, we’ve continued to evolve and will continue to evolve, and that’s a step we’ve taken with this name, and that we’re very excited about today and the future.”