Nearly 3.8 million tons of distillers dry grains are created in domestic dry grind ethanol production; farmer-owned cooperatives represent 48% of that production. For every bushel of corn made into ethanol, 18 pounds of DDGS are created and must maintain value to contribute to plant profitability. The capacity for ethanol production is set to double by 2005 and assuming that dry grind production doubles as well, the potential supply of DDGS is almost 7 million tons.

The goal of the Fiber Fermentation Project is to develop a yeast that is able to convert more of the sugars in corn to ethanol. There are some sugars in corn that make up a large percentage of the fiber that cannot be converted to ethanol. The most abundant of these sugars are xylose and arabinose, which make up 25% and 15% of the mass of corn fiber respectively. The corn fiber is an undervalued portion of the kernel that is currently found in either the DDGS or corn gluten feed co-products.

Approximately 10% of the corn kernel is fiber, found mainly in the pericarp (the outer coating of the kernel). The vast majority of the fiber is hemicellulose, a chain of primarily xylose and arabinose (known as 5-carbon sugars). During the wet milling process, this fiber is separated and later combined with the soluble proteins from the steeping water to produce a feed product known as corn gluten feed (approximately 20% protein, high fiber).