The Indianapolis Star
February 18, 2008

Mining a new mineral source
Micronutrients makes a popular copper-chloride additive for animal feed, but disappearing source of raw material is forcing it to turn to zinc product
By Jeff Swiatek
jeff.swiatek@indystar.com
February 18, 2008

Micronutrients sells a copper additive for livestock feed that has gobbled market share since it was introduced 14 years ago.
It's so popular that about half the copper trace mineral added to pig, cattle and poultry diets in the United States comes out of Micronutrients' Indianapolis plant.

But there's a pressing problem for the Westside company: The source of its copper -- two nasty-looking etching solutions that are byproducts of the U.S. printed circuit-board industry -- is fast disappearing as the industry moves to cheaper off-shore sites.

The dilemma is along the lines of a baseball glove maker facing a cow shortage or a paper plant coping with rapid deforestation.
Desperate to maintain its supplies of the copper-rich juice that arrives from circuit-board factories by train car and tanker truck, Micronutrients has bought out two rivals that competed with it to buy the solution for other needs. Three years ago, it took the costly step of opening a plant in China to tap into Asian sources of etching solution.

"That allowed us to maintain our size and our success," says Micronutrients President Fred A. Steward. But he admits the moves will only let Micronutrients survive, not thrive.

While its 60-employee plant has hit capacity, there's no sense expanding if more supplies of etching juice can't be had. As a result, Micronutrients' revenue hasn't grown appreciably in seven years, despite the eagerness of livestock feed makers to buy its better-performing copper chloride additive at a 20 percent premium over the standard copper sulfate product.

Which is why a Micronutrients team is working with laser focus in a corner of its three-building, heavily piped complex to find other trace minerals the company can produce that don't rely on copper etching juice.

Steward, a chemist who grew up and was schooled in Pennsylvania, is a key part of this search for new products, as is production manager Nick Leisure.
They hope the same chemical tinkering used to invent their copper chloride product will apply in developing better zinc, manganese and iron compounds to add to animal feed. And they have high hopes of coming out with essential trace minerals for human use, too.

"Like Centrum tablets," Steward says. "We have a definite contribution to make in that area."

Getting away from the gloomy talk about declining etch supplies puts Steward in a better mood as he sits in a small conference room at Micronutrients' plant north of Indianapolis International Airport.

"We're just sort of quietly revolutionizing the field of animal nutrition here in Indianapolis," he says.
Steward is confident Micronutrients can wield its scientific know-how to produce a family of trace minerals in forms that are easier to mix with feed and have better absorption in the body. "This improves the economics of raising animals," he says.


Moving ahead
The company's work on a zinc chloride is far enough along that it already is selling small batches to one customer. Full commercial production for the zinc additive could begin next year. It would require building a new plant, probably in Indianapolis, Steward says.
He thinks a manganese additive for feed could be ready in 2009, with an iron additive available in 2010 or 2011.

"It gets a little easier with each one," he says of the development process for the additives.

Making trace minerals for human use is trickier, because it entails getting Food and Drug Administration approval. Micronutrients will push to win FDA approval to manufacture minerals for the human market in 2009, Steward says.

Micronutrients' products "are different than anything else on the market" because it has found a way to formulate compounds so the body absorbs more of the mineral, rather than excreting it, says David H. Baker, professor emeritus of nutrition and metabolism at the University of Illinois.
Moreover, the powdery additives from Micronutrients are stable and less reactive and don't degrade vitamins or other ingredients in the feed during the normal shipping and storage period, he says. Baker also has tested Micronutrients' copper and zinc products in animals.

The company's zinc product in particular "has a lot of potential. It would be capturing most of the market" if available today, Baker said. Zinc often is used as a growth promoter in baby pigs, in addition to being added in trace amounts to hog feed.
Funding the new products and building production capacity for them shouldn't be difficult for Micronutrients, one of 28 businesses owned by Indianapolis-based Heritage Group. Given the resources of the parent company, "money is not a problem," says Steward.


But as the company moves ahead with new products, the fate of the copper plant remains in doubt, thanks to those waning supplies of its raw ingredient.
Steward doesn't see U.S. circuit-board makers expanding. And relying on foreign sources for the copper-rich etching solution is prohibitively expensive. Not only does Micronutrients have to pay overseas freight to bring the solution to Indianapolis, but it would bear the cost of shipping the pure etch solution back to the circuit-board makers once the copper is extracted, as it does now using the same trucks and railcars that bring the solution in.

A busy operation
For now, the plant runs around-the-clock, making 25 tons a day of copper chloride. The heart of the plant is a 5,000-gallon tank where tiny copper crystals grow in a green slurry.

The highly automated plant seems alive, emitting a near- deafening constant clamor while rows of plastic piping along the ceiling and walls sway slightly from the pumping action. Copper dust adheres to every surface, turning the production area Christmas-tree green.

Steward says the company will keep producing its much- in-demand copper additive as long as the domestic etching solution supplies hold up.
"There's not much opportunity to grow" the copper additive business, he says. "Our options are to get the zinc going, get the manganese going and hopefully find another source of copper."

Tags: Indiana, manufacturing, copper