A web of interweaving challenges make feed supply a more involved undertaking than ever before. Michael Barker asks what the future holds
Once upon a time, the sourcing of poultry feed would not have been considered one of the most exacting or complex parts of the job.
How times have changed. Nowadays, the feed business involves navigating volatile commodity markets and geopolitical impacts, understanding the science of nutrition, and taking into account how your choices impact overall sustainability scores.
As far as the current supply picture goes, John Thornborrow, senior poultry specialist at Harbro, says the feed market has become increasingly bullish over recent months, with upward pressure across several key raw materials. The situation is complicated by the impact of geopolitical uncertainty on global commodity markets – particularly around exports from Russia and Ukraine – while higher energy costs are feeding through into manufacturing, distribution and haulage.
The weather hasn’t helped either, with dry conditions across parts of Europe affecting cereal production and availability. “Protein markets have strengthened too, with soya influenced by global demand, changing trade flows and weather conditions in key growing regions, leading to a 15% increase in soya prices,” he explains, adding that the cost of production of vitamins, minerals and other energy-intensive micro ingredients has also been impacted.
Premier Nutrition poultry nutritionists Eloise Lawlor and Dr Alex Wealleans note the impact of a very dry harvest with low yields but good protein levels, alongside other global weather events, rising energy costs and geopolitical tension. That’s helped drive the spot price of wheat up from £185 in February to £226 for October, with barley rising from £173 to £208. In the same timeframe, soyabean meal has also jumped by £35/t, soya oil by £100/t, and there have also been large hikes in some of the smaller-volume ingredients like single amino acids, monocalcium phosphate and even salt and sodium bicarbonate. “For poultry producers, the challenge is how we navigate this market volatility rather than simply absorbing rising prices,” the two nutritionists say.
Chloe Paine, poultry technical manager at Trouw Nutrition GB, adds that as feed remains the single largest production cost, even relatively small movements in raw material prices can have a significant impact on margins. “We believe that focus should not only be on ingredient price, but on maximising the value extracted from every raw material and every tonne of feed,” she adds.
Home-grown hope?
A dizzying cocktail of issues is facing the global feed sector, but where does that leave UK supply? The good news, from Harbro’s perspective, is that there are not currently major concerns around overall feed availability. There are sufficient global stocks, albeit with tighter regional supply, and the biggest issue is therefore the cost, rather than availability of supplies.
Paine agrees that UK feed supply is relatively secure, but stresses that resilience has become more important than ever, and that means flexibility in both ingredient sourcing and formulation strategies. Trouw Nutrition identifies formulation flexibility, ingredient evaluation and rapid nutritional adaptation as key tools for managing supply risk.
Backing up that view, Lawlor and Wealleans believe that resilience of supply will be just as important as initial availability, and state that Premier Nutrition’s procurement process aims to have multiple suppliers available for all key raw materials to ameliorate disruption.
According to AHDB data, poultry feed demand makes up around 25% of total domestic consumption of UK cereals, but that doesn’t mean there isn’t room for considerably more. It makes sense that increasing production of UK-produced feeds would form part of the picture too, particularly in the context of the current drive towards sustainability and carbon-reduction objectives.
Harbro points out that through its Mobile Mill & Mix business, it already works extensively with customers to make best use of home-grown cereals, adding that it is already seeing a gradual increase in interest in home-grown protein sources such as beans and peas.
Backing that up, 2 Sisters Food Group recently called on Scottish arable farmers to help meet rising demand for rapeseed, beans and peas, as the business accelerates a major shift away from imported soy.
The UK pulses industry has already been coming together to respond to such calls. Leading the way is the four-year, £5.9m Nitrogen Climate Smart (NCS) Project, which involves 200 farmers and 17 partners and aims to increase pulse and legume cropping in arable rotations from 5 to 20% across the UK as a long-term feed solution.
Georgina Phillips, poultry specialist at Phileo UK & Ireland, agrees that there is considerable work underway to explore greater use of home-grown alternatives such as peas and beans. However, she warns, consistency of supply, nutritional value and cost remain important considerations before these ingredients can routinely replace imported soya at commercial scale.
“The gut microbiome plays a central role in digestion and nutrient utilisation, so good gut management creates potential to unlock more nutritional value from locally available ingredients, helping maintain feed efficiency and performance while reducing some of the reliance on imported raw materials,” she says. “As microbiome science develops, it could therefore become an important part of making alternative feed ingredients more commercially viable, linking feed efficiency with the wider goals of feed security, sustainability and resilient poultry production.”
Phillips believes that making greater use of alternative ingredients is not simply a question of replacing one raw material with another, however. “Some home-grown ingredients can present different digestibility challenges, so we need to understand how nutrition and the gut microbiome can be managed to help birds make efficient use of them,” she cautions. “We are also seeing some producers reconsider home milling as permitting, auditing and compliance requirements increase, potentially placing more responsibility on feed mills to source suitable raw materials.”
Improving feed performance
Growing more domestic crops is one positive route, but improving FCR and reducing feed costs are arguably the biggest areas of opportunity for the poultry industry right now. As Lawlor and Wealleans note, those business that can consistently convert good quality feed into performance and profitability will be best placed to manage market fluctuations and protect margins.
Paine says opportunity areas include precision nutrition, which means formulating closer to actual bird requirements, reducing nutrient oversupply, and boosting amino acid efficiency. There are also a wide range of areas of potential improvement around feed digestibility and nutrient absorption, including optimising feed structure and particle size, improving gizzard development, maximising nutrient ultilisation and gut health, and reducing performance losses from enteric challenges.
She reveals that internal Trouw Nutrition work has demonstrated measurable improvements in feed efficiency through feed structure optimisation and digestive function support. Add to that new developments in enzyme technology and data-driven nutrition using solutions such as NutriOpt, and the company’s view is that the next major gains will come from combining nutritional expertise with data and precision feeding rather than relying solely on cheaper ingredients.
When it comes to overall lifetime efficiency, Harbro nutritionist Dr Allison Elliott also believes that precision nutrition has a major role to play. That means the company’s nutritionists working closely with producers to tailor formulations to the requirements of individual flocks, including formulating across six amino acid ratios to fine-tune nutrient supply. “Feed structure and gut health are equally important,” she adds. “Optimising grist profile alongside targeted nutritional additives can support digestion, nutrient utilisation and bird performance. We have seen this combined approach deliver improvements in feed efficiency of up to 7.5%.”
She cites the continued growth of white layers as a further interesting development, with their potential for lower feed intake and strong lifetime egg production contributing to improved overall efficiency.
Phillips believes the microbiome is a particularly exciting area, with greater potential to use nutrition to support efficient digestions as understanding of the microbial populations within the gut develops, helping birds extract more from feed. “This could become particularly relevant as the industry looks towards a wider range of alternative and home-grown ingredients, which are often less easily digested than soya,” she says.
Joining forces
When ABN announced in July that it had taken the “incredibly difficult decision” to quit the UK monogastric compound feed market, it raised questions about just how secure home-produced supplies really are, particularly against the backdrop of global instability. While the experts spoken to for this article were optimistic about the current level of supply, the development does highlight ongoing upheaval at a supplier level in the domestic feed business.
ABN’s decision was certainly not the only event to shake up the UK feed supply picture this summer. Another of the big talking points has been Harbro’s acquisition, in August, of Cargill Animal Nutrition & Health’s business in Dalton, North Yorkshire in a deal that includes both the feed plant and associated operation. Harbro says the integration of the two companies’ expertise will create “an exciting combination and opportunity to be leading innovators in the poultry industry” with the ultimate aim of translating the combined knowledge into better bird health, performance, efficiency and profitability for UK poultry producers.
Paine believes that consolidation is coming as businesses grow and the value of standardised nutrition programmes, digital tools and measurable performance outcomes increases significantly. “We are also seeing greater collaboration across the supply chain between feed suppliers, producers, retailers and egg packers to meet sustainability and efficiency targets,” she observes.
As Lawlor and Wealleans point out, we are now in the age of big data, Power BI and economies of scale. That mean producers are under pressure to maximise efficiency and consistency across multiple sites, and therefore nutrition strategies are needed that are able to deliver repeatable results. “With fewer decision-makers, we can test and trial strategies faster and with greater impact than in a fractured market, though larger businesses may also become more risk-averse,” they state. “We’re also seeing greater demand for technical support and data-driven decision making. Customers want partners who can help to interpret performance data and identify opportunities to improve flock performance, rather than simply supply products.”
For the future, Lawlor and Wealleans believe that feed efficiency will become even more important, precision nutrition will be seen as a major opportunity, and producers will look for greater consistency.
It’s fair to say that feed sourcing and utilisation has ultimately become a multi-disciplinary endeavour, as Paine concludes: “Feed will continue to account for the majority of poultry production costs and environmental impact. The biggest opportunity is no longer simply buying ingredients more cheaply; it is using better data, better nutrition and better technology to extract more value from every tonne of raw material and every tonne of feed produced, all while producing poultry products more sustainably.”
Feed innovations
- Harbro says its innovation is focused on precision nutrition and using targeted nutritional technologies to address specific challenges. In past decade it has deveoped a number of specialist nutritional solutions including Evo, SynTek and LiverAid, which can be incorporated into diets to provide targeted nutritional support for bird health and performance. “Innovation continues to be at the forefront of our plans, with us continuing to develop our approach to amino acid nutrition, feed structure, gut health and micronutrient supply,” the company explains.
- Phileo UK & Ireland highlights its Microsaf Bacillus bacterial probiotic, which takes a different approach to conventional single-strain Bacillus probiotics. Microsaf combines three complementary Bacillus strains, each contributing different functions within the gut, including enzyme and organic acid production and supporting the bird during microbial challenges. It features patented GO Technology, which places key germinants within the Bacillus spores, priming them for faster germination and more efficient activation once they reach the bird’s gut. This is designed to support digestive function, feed intake, body weight gain and feed efficiency, making it particularly relevant as producers look to get more nutritional value from every tonne of feed.
- Premier Nutrition has launched new functionality within its Atlas online platform, enabling nutritionists and formulators to quickly model changes in raw material nutrient composition and understand the wider implications for pig and poultry diets. The new capability allows users to copy an existing raw material, adjust crude protein and automatically recalculate related amino acid values. These changes will automatically update both total and digestible amino acid values for pig and poultry applications. The enhancement has been developed to support nutritionists during harvest analysis, when seasonal variation in cereals, beans and other raw materials can significantly influence diet formulation.
- Trouw’s innovation is focused on integrated nutritional solutions rather than single products, with examples including the NutriOpt suite of digital nutritional tools, and MyFeedPrint, MyEggPrint, MyChickenPrint – tools that help producers quantify and reduce the carbon footprint of feed, egg and meat production while maintaining profitability.