Assessment of the quality of commercial soy protein concentrates used in poultry feed in Kampala city

Abstract

There are various feed concentrates on market for poultry farmers in Kampala city, but little is known about their nutritional composition. Therefore, a cross- sectional study was conducted to determine the quality of commercial soy protein concentrates sold by feed retailers in the five divisions of Kampala City; Kawempe, Rubaga, Makindye, Kampala Central and Nakawa. A total of thirty samples were collected from feed vendors through simple random sampling and tested for protein content, protein dispersibility index (PDI) following the Kjeldahl method of analysis, while crude fibre was estimated using the Van Soest procedure. The ratio of crude protein to crude fiber was then computed. From the results, the protein content varied between 37.83% to 44.91% and the mean was 40.49±6.58, while PDI varied between 0.66% to 0.99% and the mean PDI 0.85%±0.24. The total ratio of protein to fiber was 11:1, Protein content in the samples collected from Kawempe was significantly high standard deviation of 4.22 compared to protein content in samples from the other divisions. PDI was highest in samples from Nakawa and lowest in samples from Kawempe division. Kawempe division has a higher crude protein content and protein to crude fiber ratio amongst all the divisions, however its PDI is low indicating a negative effect on the structure the protein ready for digestibility by the poultry birds. The study therefore recommends that, there should be quality assessment of the protein concentrates sold around Kampala city in all the five divisions to ensure supply of efficient soy protein concentrates. More study should be done with larger sample size in other parts of the country to determine the overall quality, formulation and good manufacturing practices of these concentrates to assess the problem.