In an industry where margins are measured in cents per kilogram and production cycles in days, broiler nutritionists face a constant balancing act: maximising genetic performance while navigating volatile feed costs. Increasingly, the solution lies not in chasing the lowest-priced ingredients, but in understanding the true cost of digestible nutrients—and the revenue gains that come from consistent, high-performance nutrition.
Broiler producers often focus on lowering feed cost per tonne, sometimes overlooking revenue optimisation. Yet faster growth rates don’t just improve feed conversion; they can enable additional production cycles within a year. With modern genetics allowing birds to reach market weight in 35–42 days, even small gains in performance translate directly into higher throughput and improved profitability.
Uniformity is another critical driver of revenue. In premium markets, consistent weight ranges command higher prices and protect supplier relationships. Global buyers such as KFC, one of the world’s largest poultry purchasers, enforce strict weight specifications to ensure precise cooking times and food safety. Birds that fall outside these ranges attract penalties or rejection, making flock uniformity essential rather than optional for producers supplying high-value channels.
Ingredient consistency underpins performance
As broiler genetics advance, nutrition tolerances become tighter and the margin for error narrows. Variability in ingredient quality forces nutritionists to build in safety margins—essentially over-formulating diets to compensate for uncertainty. These margins raise feed costs without delivering additional performance.
This is where US soybean meal offers a clear advantage. Multiple studies show that US soy provides higher and more consistent digestible amino acids and metabolisable energy compared with South American alternatives. Key amino acids in US soybean meal typically achieve over 90% digestibility, compared with 85–88% for Brazilian meal and 82–86% for Argentine meal. Apparent metabolisable energy corrected for nitrogen (AMEn) also averages higher, at around 2,350 kcal/kg, versus 2,280 kcal/kg and 2,260 kcal/kg respectively.
This superior digestibility allows nutritionists to reduce safety margins and formulate diets more precisely. Even when US soybean meal carries a price premium of US$10–15 per tonne, economic analysis shows it can reduce real feed costs by US$12–20 per tonne through higher nutrient density and utilisation.
Supporting high-performance genetics
Today’s broilers are the result of decades of genetic selection for rapid growth and efficient muscle deposition—particularly breast meat, the most valuable carcass component. Unlocking this genetic potential depends on optimal nutrition.
Research consistently links the higher digestible amino acid and energy values in US soy to improved growth rates, better feed efficiency and higher breast meat yield. Comparative studies have demonstrated improvements of up to 3% in feed conversion ratio when US soybean meal replaces South American alternatives.
Recent research supported by the US Soybean Export Council (USSEC) has strengthened this evidence base by linking biological outcomes with commercial performance. Studies assessing digestive tract health, nutrient absorption, growth rate, uniformity and feed conversion show healthier digestive systems, more efficient nutrient uptake, faster achievement of target weights and greater flock uniformity when diets include US soybean meal.
The economics of quality
Feed represents 65–75% of total broiler production costs, making ingredient decisions critical. The key metric is not cost per tonne, but cost per unit of digestible nutrient. On this basis, US soybean meal consistently delivers lower costs per kilogram of digestible lysine, methionine and energy.
US soybean meal typically contains around 47.5% crude protein, with higher levels of digestible lysine and methionine than Argentine or Brazilian meals. Combined with an AMEn value approaching 2,400 kcal/kg, it offers an excellent protein-to-energy balance that supports high daily weight gain, improved feed conversion, enhanced carcass quality and reduced formulation variability.
Perhaps most importantly, consistency reduces risk. Lower variability means fewer mid-cycle reformulations, more predictable performance and greater confidence in meeting processor specifications. In an industry where a single percentage-point improvement in feed conversion can determine profitability, reliability is a competitive advantage.
Proving value at farm level
While the research is compelling, producers ultimately need to see results under their own management systems and environmental conditions. Recognising this, USSEC continues to invest in commercial-scale demonstrations, including side-by-side barn trials and monitored production cycles, to help producers quantify the real-world benefits of US soybean meal in their operations.
For broiler producers focused on both cost control and revenue growth, the evidence is clear: when nutrition decisions are based on digestible value and consistency rather than headline price, US soy delivers measurable returns.
