Kemin Industries, a Des Moines-based ingredient manufacturer, says it has reached more than half of the world’s population through its products since 1998. Now the company has set sights on reaching 80% of the worldwide population by 2042 — approximately 8 billion of the estimated 10 billion people, Kemin announced. 

“As we look to this new goal, we’re very dedicated that it’s going to be focused around attaining this in a sustainable manner,” said Chris Nelson, Kemin president and CEO. “We’ve really defined sustainability in three different ways … sustainable people, sustainable planet and a sustainable business.” 

Nelson said the company leadership would be meeting in mid-June to define the nine metrics establishing how Kemin would be tracking its impact. “It’s a work in progress right now,” he said. 

Kemin has introduced new nutraceutical products, which Nelson said have the ability to stimulate the immune system. Fifty percent of the company’s product lines focus on products designed for human use and consumption, and much of the business is divided between targeted poultry, pig and cattle industries. 

“There’s probably going to be a few in particular that are going to be emphasized,” Nelson said. “We have a total of five technologies that can be utilized for the replacement of antibiotics in animal feed. In my mind, there’s no doubt that those products are going to continue to grow quite well. In addition, we manufacture palatants that go into pet food.” 

“One of our products that we know quite well is used basically as 2 pounds per ton of animal feed,” Nelson said. “In a poultry feed, we know how many chickens can be grown on a ton of poultry feed. We then know the per capita consumption of chicken in the United States, and based on that we can calculate how many people we’ve touched with that particular 2 pounds of our product.” 

Kemin tracks the number of people reached by scaling that method to all products, Nelson said. 

The announcement comes as Kemin is hosting up to 800 of its international employees in Des Moines this week for several days of private seminars, which the company organizes every five years. The company has more than 2,800 employees internationally and an estimated 700 employees located at Kemin’s Des Moines headquarters. 

“These goals that we’re putting forward are truly long-term goals; we don’t expect to make these for 20 to 30 years. But as a family-owned business that is really focused on a multigenerational approach to our business, we feel it’s essential to really be taking the long view, and these goals do exactly that,” Nelson said.