Cottonseed Meal & Cake

Decorticated and undecorticated cottonseed meal by protein, fibre and free gossypol

Cottonseed meal is the protein cake left after cottonseed is delinted, dehulled (or not) and pressed or solvent-extracted for oil, and the first thing the buyer needs to know is whether the hulls were taken off. Feedipedia's compilation puts protein at about 22% in meal from undecorticated seed and up to 41–42% in decorticated meal, with crude fibre from 8–16% in decorticated to about 27% in undecorticated cake; US mills dehull as standard, while many Indian, African and Central Asian mills leave the hull on or take it off only partly and sell a fibre-rich cake. The second thing is gossypol, the yellow pigment in the seed's glands that is toxic to pigs, poultry and young calves but tolerated by adult ruminants: total gossypol in meal runs 1.2–1.5% and free gossypol 0.02–0.8% depending on the pressing (heat and expeller pressure bind it), and EU Directive 2002/32/EC caps free gossypol at 1,200 mg/kg in cottonseed cake and meal as a feed material and in complete feed at 500 mg/kg for cattle, 300 mg/kg for sheep and goats, 100 mg/kg for poultry and calves and 20 mg/kg for laying hens and piglets. So it is a ruminant meal: dairy and beef rations take decorticated meal as a soybean-meal substitute at 10–20% inclusion, and undecorticated cake is a cheap dairy fibre-and-protein feed in India, Pakistan and West Africa. UN Comtrade 2024 export declarations under HS 2306.10 are small next to the other oil meals — the crop is crushed and fed near the gin — and led by West Africa: Côte d'Ivoire 61,000 MT at an average USD 166/MT, Benin 54,000 MT at USD 244, Burkina Faso 49,000 MT at USD 237, the USA 46,000 MT at USD 312, Greece 35,000 MT at USD 418, Tanzania 30,000 MT and Kazakhstan 30,000 MT at about USD 200, and India 16,000 MT at USD 327. India is the world's largest producer of cottonseed cake but consumes almost all of it in its own dairy sector; the export lots that do move go mainly to South Korea, Bangladesh and Japan.

The buyer is a dairy mill in Korea, Japan or Vietnam, a Mediterranean feedlot, or a Bangladeshi or Sri Lankan compounder buying undecorticated cake for cattle, and the question is protein against soybean meal on the day with the free gossypol figure on the certificate. CBIL is a commodity brokerage company and brokers decorticated and undecorticated cottonseed meal and cake from Indian, US, Brazilian, Greek and West African crushers and trader positions against SGS or Intertek certification of protein, fibre, oil, moisture, ash and free gossypol at the load port, with aflatoxin and amino-acid profile on request. Parcels are structured as Handysize bulk on FOB and CFR out of the US Gulf, Santos, Abidjan, Cotonou and Kandla, and in 20-foot containers in 50 kg bags or jumbo bags for mills taking 300–2,000 MT a month; where the meal is for pigs or poultry we say so at the outset, because only low-gossypol or glandless meal fits. Because CBIL also runs a chartering desk (LaycanDesk), the freight leg can be quoted with the cargo. Send your protein band, the species you feed, your free gossypol ceiling and the monthly tonnage and we will work the crusher to it.

Need the ship as well? Our chartering desk prices bulk feed ingredient freight on LaycanDesk.

Excluded origins are not offered, including product re-exported, blended or re-processed through a third country. Every lot moves with a certificate of origin naming the producing plant, mine or grower country, and nothing is quoted before the seller and loading point are known.