An Open-Data Screening Framework for Potential Ddgs Backhaul Logistics in Brazil: Integrating Corn-Ethanol Feedstock, Livestock Context, and Regulatory Freight-Floor Scenarios

Brazil’s expanding corn-ethanol sector generates distillers dried grains with solubles (DDGS), a coproduct used in animal nutrition, while road freight logistics may create opportunities to coordinate agricultural supply chains. Yet public production, livestock and distance indicators do not establish plant-level saleable supply, buyer demand, or an actual empty return movement. This study develops a reproducible open-data screening workflow linking an ANP-derived state-month corn-processing series, an EPE planning conversion factor, municipal livestock context, eight candidate municipal corridors, and an illustrative minimum-freight-floor scenario based on ANTT coefficients. The integrated series indicates 17.270 million tonnes of corn processed in 2024 and 21.449 million tonnes in 2025 (+24.2%). Applying the EPE planning factor of 0.212 tonnes of DDGS per tonne of corn yields derived estimates of 3.661 and 4.547 million tonnes, respectively; these are planning-factor estimates, not measured DDGS production. For January–September, reported corn processing rises from 15.509 million tonnes in 2025 to 18.938 million tonnes in 2026 (+22.1%). Eight candidate corridors span 91.3–569.1 km. Under the selected ANTT scenario and an assumed 32-tonne payload, the full-trip floor ranges from R$ 42.83 to R$ 155.77/t. Sensitivity cases allocating 25–50% of that floor to DDGS produce scenario allocations of R$10.71–R$77.89/t across the route set, but these are not observed savings. A break-even margin equation is provided for readers to populate with their own product prices, handling costs, buyer values and verified freight quotations. The study’s contribution is an auditable screening and reproduction protocol that distinguishes observations, derived estimates and assumptions, and makes explicit which commercial data are needed to assess market-specific profitability.