Cargill’s seat at the centre of the supply chain gives us a unique role in connecting farmers and producers, customers, and consumers, as we work responsibly to make the world’s food system more sustainable, resilient, and accessible. At IPPE 2024 we’re excited to showcase our integrated team model, which allows us to help customers get the best out of every bird. Attendees visiting our booth will have the opportunity to learn Cargill’s tailor-made solutions, uniquely designed to address the specific challenges our customers are facing.

Consumer demand for poultry meat and eggs is increasing rapidly on a global scale. The poultry industry has many challenges to overcome to meet this demand in a sustainable way.
The emergence of risks associated with antibiotic growth promoters (AGP), which were widely used by poultry farmers in the past for efficiency reasons, caused their use to be banned in many regions. Consumers now show more demand for natural and healthy products. In addition, access to feed raw materials is becoming increasingly difficult due to climate change and the ongoing war on important grain suppliers, the prevalence of pathogenic animal diseases such as avian flu is increasing and production costs are rising rapidly. All these are very challenging factors for the industry.
In today’s highly challenging environment, it is possible to improve production performance while protecting the health of animals. The global leaders of the animal nutrition industry are making many innovations that can achieve this through their research. Cargill is one of them.
Yann Fournis, Gut Health and Performance Poultry Category Lead at Cargill, explained the challenges faced by the poultry industry and the tools they can use to improve health and performance in combating these challenges for the readers of our magazine.
“The poultry industry is facing many challenges, and at Cargill we have tools necessary to help poultry producers adapt and thrive” said Fournis, and invited the representatives of the poultry industry to IPPE 2024 event to see all these tools.
Demand for poultry products is increasing day by day worldwide. While the industry is making a great effort to meet this growing demand, it also has to struggle with various restrictive factors such as animal diseases and antibiotic reduction. Can you tell us how Cargill supports the poultry industry in combating these challenges?
The poultry industry is facing many challenges, and at Cargill we have tools necessary to help poultry producers adapt and thrive. We offer a range of feed and feed additives that help support the overall health of birds. For example, Cargill offers postbiotics – derived from fermentation – to help support healthy intestinal microflora. Our feeds also offer a range of nutritional support for flocks.
The poultry industry is facing a double challenge of needing to meet growing demand while addressing societal expectations to minimize the use and adopt better stewardship of antibiotics. At Cargill, we have the tools to help support this, thanks to our diversified portfolio of solutions and panoply of molecules available leading to an infinite range of possibilities in supporting and maintaining the health of birds through nutritional solutions. By combining the right technologies and relevant ingredients in the right amount, we can help address the vast majority of health challenges our industry is facing, by maintaining health and promoting the resilience of birds.
To take just a few examples, phytogenic molecules – extracted from plants – have been shown to beneficially impact gut health. Postbiotics – derived from fermentation – have for their part demonstrated their effectiveness on gut integrity and beneficial modulation of intestinal microflora. Therefore, by leveraging on our key ingredients from postbiotics to organic acids alone or in combination with phytogenic and antioxidants, we can offer our customers effective and targeted solutions to succeed.
Producing more with what is available or less is one of the most critical issues today. What does Cargill offer to improve production performance in poultry? In other words, what products and methods do you think the poultry industry should use to produce more?
One aspect of sustainability involves saving resources. To produce more with less, a key lever to activate is optimizing the feed conversion ratio (FCR) in poultry production. We are very enthusiastic about the results of our first true synergistic postbiotic and phytogenic based product, Dia V™ MBPRO, bringing an observed reduction in feed conversion ratio of 2.5% on average, which means between three-to-four points for broilers slaughtered at 42 days of age with a body weight of 2.6 kg. This beneficial reduction of FCR comes on top of observed increased body weight gain and breast meat yield. These benefits are linked to the dual action of postbiotics and phytogenic potentially exerting their beneficial support in different segments of the digestive tract and allowing the bird to maximize nutrient absorption while modulating the microflora and enabling to avoid resource wastage. IPPE visitors can learn more about the product and research we’ve completed by visiting us in Booth A2233.
Health is an essential tool for high production performance. What are the alternative solutions to support the health of animals while minimizing the use of antibiotics?
Animal health and welfare is a key concern for us, and we have developed dedicated technology to support animal health – postbiotics, which have recently been precisely positioned based on a consensus definition developed by ISAPP (International Scientific Association of Pre and Probiotics). Postbiotics have been shown to act on four major pillars of health: acquired immunity, innate immunity, digestive health, and the orientation of the intestinal microbiota. The benefits of postbiotics on these four functionality pillars have been scientifically demonstrated through more than 80 scientific publications, including 32 published in peer-reviewed journals. Functionalities offered by postbiotics help support the animal’s immune system and microbiome to optimize animal health and performance.
The animal nutrition industry, especially the poultry industry, is looking forward to IPPE 2024 for an exciting meeting. You are also among the exhibitors. What awaits visitors at the Cargill booth at IPPE 2024?
Cargill’s seat at the centre of the supply chain gives us a unique role in connecting farmers and producers, customers, and consumers, as we work responsibly to make the world’s food system more sustainable, resilient, and accessible. At IPPE 2024 we’re excited to showcase our integrated team model, which allows us to help customers get the best out of every bird. Attendees visiting our booth will have the opportunity to learn Cargill’s tailor-made solutions, uniquely designed to address the specific challenges our customers are facing. Those solutions include innovative feed additives, premixes, complete feed, nutritional services, technical services, and digital technologies to help poultry producers improve efficiencies and ensure their birds meet their genetic potential.
As a company recognised for your commitment to research and innovation, can you give us some hints about the innovations, if any, that you are preparing to introduce to the poultry industry at IPPE 2024?
At Cargill we serve our customers by investing in local markets through global research and state-of-the-art capabilities and solutions. An example of that research and innovation is REVEAL™ Layers, which we are introducing at IPPE. The poultry laying industry has long known that layer persistency is influenced by body condition. REVEAL Layers, Cargill’s patent-pending breakthrough NIR technology, provides poultry layer producers and nutritionists with real-time, mobile-accessible body composition assessments, allowing them to analyse the relationship between body fat and egg production. By measuring, understanding, and controlling body condition, producers can optimize diet composition, helping to improve profitability through optimized laying persistency and egg production. Watch for information regarding Cargill’s TECHTalk about REVEAL Layers.
Could you share your messages for the poultry industry and your predictions about possible developments in the industry in 2024?
The poultry industry is extremely dynamic, with an incredible capacity for adaptation and an unwavering desire to progress and innovate. Development efforts will focus in the coming years on demedication: demand is growing and certain countries such as China – a gigantic market – have, for example, recently announced the cessation of the use of growth promoting antibiotics. Our objective is to support our customers through this process and to offer solutions for each of the challenges they face. In the past, a solution was positioned to address a wide range of concerns. Those days are over; the market now wants effective and, above all, targeted solutions to support and optimize the health and resilience of birds in this changing paradigm. We are uniquely prepared and positioned to deliver that to our customers.
Finally, what would you like to add?
By merging with market leaders and partnering with the best suppliers, Cargill is and will continue to maintain its leading position in additives, developing efficient solutions to answer customer expectations both today and tomorrow. For a deep dive into our portfolio and a good understanding of what we can offer, please visit us at IPPE Hall A, booth A2233.
About Yann Fournis
Yann Fournis is additives poultry category lead for CAN, the animal nutrition division of Cargill. He started January 2018 in this position. In his current role, he is responsible for the deployment of three additives portfolios within Cargill Animal Nutrition businesses, and contributes to the innovation with Cargill partners to find new solutions able to answer customers’ expectations.
Fournis graduated as zootechnical engineer in 2011 from AgroCampus Ouest in France, with main focus on animal production. From 2011 to 2018, he worked as a layer nutritionist in Cargill France, on its domestic and export markets. In 2016 he focused on layer nutrition and management, working with on-farm mixers and feed millers in France, Sub-Saharan Africa and Latin America.