New product makes loading DDGS less labor intensive

Ethanol Producer Magazine
By Kris Bevill May 03, 2011

It’s easy to imagine that one of the least enjoyable moments of an ethanol plant worker’s day is when the time comes to climb to the top of a railcar and, using nothing more than a hand shovel, pack a freshly deposited load of distillers dried grains with solubles (DDGS) into the car before it can be shipped off to its final destination. This laborious process inspired Ryan Schroeder, a commodities assistant at the 73 MMgy Poet Biorefining-Leipsic plant in Ohio to come up with a better solution. In 2008, he began developing what has become known as the Load Toad. It’s a piece of equipment designed to evenly distribute distillers grains throughout the rail car, eliminating the need for hand shoveling and increasing the amount of product that can be packed into each car by up to 5 percent, or 5 tons, according to Poet LLC.

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